Friday, 10 October 2014

Review: The Snow White Murder Case


Yoshihiro Nakamura is a great storyteller. His previous films like Fish Story, Golden Slumber and A Boy and His Samurai (JFF 2011) all perfectly demonstrated his incredible ability to tell stories in a way that keeps audiences interested and intrigued from a film’s introduction to its conclusion. The Snow White Murder Case, his latest film, is another fine addition to his filmography. Featuring a great cast who all give credible performances, it is an exciting, enjoyable and entertaining film, which carries with it a simple but important message for all of today’s worshippers of social media.

When a beautiful girl is brutally murdered and burned, the hunt is on for the killer. A TV station employee receives some insider information from a friend who works at the victim's company, and following interviews of other staff from the company, it becomes apparent who the murderer is. So the reporter decides to put the explosive details into a TV program and share details about the murderer on Twitter. Soon, everyone knows of the person's identity...

The film is based on a novel by Kanae Minato, who wrote Confessions, on which the acclaimed 2010 film of the same name was based. Not quite as dark as Confessions, and replacing some of the darkness with black humour, The Snow White Murder Case is a film that cleverly tells the story from multiple different perspectives, with the audience being given a few pieces of the puzzle at a time. As the plots unfold, it becomes obvious that the puzzle pieces don’t fit together perfectly and not everyone is telling the truth. The audience therefore become increasingly engaged as they get more and more clues and learn more and more about the alleged murderer.

Oh, and the take home message is: Don’t believe everything you see on television, the internet and social media.

The Bottom Line: This is easily the second best film with the name ‘Snow White’ in its title.  

(Seen at the 18th Japanese Film Festival in Australia - See the Official Website for details)


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