Impossibility Defense (2018)

Around the World in 195 Films
Country 4: Japan
Film: Impossibility Defense
Director: Shiraishi Koji
Rating: 9/10 [4.5/5]

I'm not too big on crime like films, especially when it comes from the 'adapted from a manga' tag. I usually find that directors do too much or too little during crimes, or there's too many sub-plots they try to do, but all in all... This was pretty solid.

It was dark, creepy, there was enough there to make your own guesses, and the acting was all stellar. There wasn't really anything I didn't like about this besides I thought some scenes were just a bit too much or needed some better explaining, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Matsuzaka Tori's portrayal of The Man in the Black Suit was absolutely stunning and I will for sure be going on to read the manga this was adapted from from his performance alone.
Sawajiri Erika's performance is the reason 'strong female lead' was created and I adored both these mains in their roles.

I cannot wait to read more of this universe and I am wholly excited for the future of discovering more about the world shown to us in Impossibility Defense.

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First off Tori as psychopathic killer... gimme. Second, I liked the script, and the symbolism of the cinematography where the female protagonist and Tori were placed on two sides of the shot but the female detective is in the light and Tori is in darkness... there were plenty of beautiful moments like this. But for me what was lacking was a genuine connection between the characters.

The female detective doesn't exactly seem that close to her junior played by Mackenyu there was no chemistry between them so when one character is put in jeopardy and the other is supposed to react you don't feel their dilemma or any sense of loss. And the female lead in general comes across as cold and doesn't express love that well and the lack of bonding scenes naturally didn't help.

Pretty much every relationship they show feels shallow, which would be fine, if they weren't trying to make the cops look like regular 'good' people. The female cop especially, gives me nothing to connect with her and when she's shown connected to others that's not believable either.

So that is one major flaw. But Tori did such a great job and the nuance of the script and direction other than the relationships were pretty good.

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