Shokuzai
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Based on: Kanae Minato’s novel
Cast: Kyôko Koizumi, Yû Aoi, Eiko Koike, Sakura Andô, Chizuru Ikewaki, Teruyuki Kagawa
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Some 15 years ago, young Emili was murdered while four of her friends became partly witnesses. But they kept quiet and Emili’s mother Asako (Kyôko Koizumi) cursed them for it. Now all of the girls will have to pay their dues and do their penance.

Penance is a mini series (I don’t know if they actually want to continue it anymore) and each episode is devoted to one of the girls, with the final episode to Asako. And it was an excellent watch, with fascinating stories and an interesting outlook on Japanese culture.

Not all the episodes in the series work equally well and there were a couple of things that went a bit wonky when it came to the plotting. Especially the overall plot and Asako’s story arc became a bit much and towards the end, I was rolling my eyes pretty hard.

But despite the overly dramatic ending though, I generally enjoyed storylines of the girls. Especially the first episode, “French Doll” and the third episode “Brother and Sister Bear” really resonated with me. I also liked the fourth one, “Ten Months Ten Days”, but the second one “Emergency PTA Meeting” was the weakest of the four plots revolving around the girl – especially the ending was just too much and cheapened the rest of the episode.

Generally the series was excellent though. It cast a very critical and pretty feminist eye on Japanese society (or at least some aspects of it) and takes it on in the necessary complexity. The cast was absolutely fantastic, too (Sakura Andô especially really gave me the chills) and they really had juicy characters to sink their teeth into.

Kurosawa sets it all in scene beautifully – the images are very nice, the pacing is excellent and emotionally it hits the right notes as well. Watching all of it in two goes was intense but it paid off.

Summarizing: very nice in a horrible way.