• 12人の優しい日本人 (The Gentle Twelve)

4/23/13 (Tue)

Nakahara Shun’s 1991 film version of a play from the previous year by the prolific Mitani Koki envisioning jury duty à la Japonaise based on the format of Twelve Angry Men – call it “Twelve Not-So-Angry Japanese”. While the jury system has since been introduced in Japan, Mitani seems less interested in politics than in showing the Japanese temperament at work. Twelve jurors initially dismiss a murder case in an eagerness to get their duty over with and return home, but one of them has second thoughts and forces a serious discussion, which proceeds in the movie roughly in real time. A man has been run over by a truck after allegedly being pushed into the street by his ex-wife. But was it premeditated or self-defense? Did the woman have murderous intent, or did she push him without realizing the truck was coming?