By far one of the best and most original revenge movies I've seen in a long while. There's no gratuitous violence or gore. This is intelligent fare, complex and visceral as only the Japanese can make. The lead actress was amazing in her role. Even if you can't relate to her situation as a mother, if you're not one yourself, her devastating experience is gut-wrenching enough to inspire horror and torment. Through her heartbreaking soft-spoken recollections of her daughter you could feel how deeply entrenched her pain was, her simmering rage at the senseless act that had befallen her beloved child. In short, she was a very sympathetic figure, and the psychological mayhem she unleashed on the perpetrators in pursuit of revenge seemed poetically justified against the backdrop of the film's visually stunning mosaic. As with many Japanese films I've seen of late, Confessions was slow to build, but raged toward a pulsating climax by the end of the second act. Dark and artistically fortified by the director's unique eye for detail the film will challenge any perceptions you ever had, if any, about juvenile homicide. With that said Confessions fell short of a perfect 10 for me because I felt it was trying too hard to be too many things at once. It did not achieve a perfect balance between art and story. Instead one is often sacrificed in pursuit of the other at varying points in the film. The best art movies are those that are able to combine both art and story seamlessly (see movies like 3-iron or In The Mood For Love). At times I felt certain scenes in Confessions were included to fortify its artistic merit but not necessarily essential to the story at hand. The film deserves every accolade, however, for breathing new life into the revenge sub-genre, especially if your previous consumption has been mostly western fare. I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a thinking (wo)man's film.