Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw) (Japanese)

My knowledge about cinema (or clearly, the lack of it) came to the fore when I was walking into the show of Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw), a Japanese movie, at Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines.  A co-viewer and coincidentally, fellow reviewer asked me, “You’ve come to see Miike”.  I can assure you that my expression was worse than that of a toddler being asked to identify the capital of Swaziland.

Needless to say, some research followed after I got back home that evening and I was informed – thanks to Wikipedia – that I had just viewed a movie from one of the leading directors of Asia – if not the world.  Miike has made nearly 90 movies (Shorts, videos, features – all included – as per imdb.com).  And I hadn’t even heard of him.  And in all humility, I am the more informed in several circles.

Some of the things that the research threw up included tidbits such as how his films are often very provocative, based on extreme violence and sexual taboos and how his films often contain ambiguous and/or truly bizarre endings.  I haven’t seen any other Miike movie other than WNT and I can assure you that it was not extremely violent or with any sexual taboo or an ambiguous or bizarre ending – unless of course, it was heavily edited.

What WNT does have is an extremely strong story that is deeply rooted in Japanese culture despite being set in the world of today.  Kunihide Kiyomaru (Tatsua Fujiwara) is a serial killer who surrenders after killing a 7 year old.  What he is probably unaware of (it has not been established), is that the girl is the grand-daughter of one of Japan’s richest industrialists – Ninagawa (Tsutomu Yamazaki).

Ninagawa is terminally ill and releases an advertisement in the papers that announces a reward of a 100 Million Yen for anyone who will kill Kiyomaru.  Any hidden conditions? Not really.  More like open conditions. The killing must be sanctioned by the Government (yeah right!!!).  If illegal, the killer will need to suffer the required consequences as deemed fit by the government.

Now how solid is that for a concept.  And would anyone envy the job given to Atsuko Shiraiwa (Nanako Matsushima), Takeshi Okumura (Gorô Kishitani       ), Kenji Sekiya (Masatô Ibu), Masaki Kamihashi (Kento Nagayama) and their leader - Kazuki Mekari (Takao Ohsawa)?  What is the job you ask? To get Kiyomaru to safety from Osaka to Tokyo where he will be tried.

Miike proceeds to lay bare the complete lack of personal ethic in human life.  He shows how the entire system – even the usually solid Japanese one – breaks down.  It also raises some really hard hitting questions like, “Is it right to protect a serial killer to give him a fair trial?”. What is wrong with the entire country killing a person who will anyways be put to death after trial?

If to that extent, you would like to call Miike’s last movie – bizarre – then more power to you.  I think he speaks about things that you and I would not have the courage to bring up because there maybe no right answer to the question.  Ergo, it becomes uncomfortable.  Ergo we say, “bizarre”.  I say – brilliant concept!!!  Could it have been executed better? Of course there was room for improvement but the concept had me within 5 minutes.  7 on 10 and put it onto your must watch list.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53bmCNv2sog