This film has an encouraging start (if you are a fan revenge films) where a man and an accomplice abduct a person who they believe to be the murderer of the man's daughter. They take him to an abandoned warehouse where it seems like a drawn-out and vengeful torture-murder will occur. However, this never materializes. Instead, a secondary plot emerges where the accomplice has his own agenda of revenge for his own daughter who was also murdered.
The film's plot is basic. Initially, it seems that the film will be a character study of sorts, however, this only happens in a minimal way. Many of the characters are two-dimensional and are grossly underused, or in fact entirely unnecessary. The Yakuza boss is featureless and unimpressive. The "watchdog", who is described by a Yakuza boss as being unstoppable, is quickly stopped. The little girl who is a maths prodigy has no purpose in the plot... I'm not sure at all why she even featured in the film, perhaps her role was as a prop to show the maths professor's sorrow for the loss of his daughter, where she is a proxy daughter? The father of the murdered child (not the maths professor) is apparently an ex-Yakuza member, although, he behaves and presents more like some lowly office worker. The maths professor dresses and behaves more like a Yakuza... it's not convincing.
The sequences where the maths professor is teaching maths are entirely gratuitous, with the exception of the first one as it revealed who the accomplice was. The subsequent times these scenes occurred added nothing to the plot and were very dull.
The ending of the film was, frankly, boring and the final scene (the "one year earlier" flashback) made no sense at all.
The production value seemed decent enough and the acting wasn't bad, which is why I gave it the rating I did, but the current rating on IMDb for this film (7.2) in my opinion is far too generous.
This film was quite watchable and overall it didn't bore me, but personally it is not something I expect I will watch again, at least not any time soon.
The film's plot is basic. Initially, it seems that the film will be a character study of sorts, however, this only happens in a minimal way. Many of the characters are two-dimensional and are grossly underused, or in fact entirely unnecessary. The Yakuza boss is featureless and unimpressive. The "watchdog", who is described by a Yakuza boss as being unstoppable, is quickly stopped. The little girl who is a maths prodigy has no purpose in the plot... I'm not sure at all why she even featured in the film, perhaps her role was as a prop to show the maths professor's sorrow for the loss of his daughter, where she is a proxy daughter? The father of the murdered child (not the maths professor) is apparently an ex-Yakuza member, although, he behaves and presents more like some lowly office worker. The maths professor dresses and behaves more like a Yakuza... it's not convincing.
The sequences where the maths professor is teaching maths are entirely gratuitous, with the exception of the first one as it revealed who the accomplice was. The subsequent times these scenes occurred added nothing to the plot and were very dull.
The ending of the film was, frankly, boring and the final scene (the "one year earlier" flashback) made no sense at all.
The production value seemed decent enough and the acting wasn't bad, which is why I gave it the rating I did, but the current rating on IMDb for this film (7.2) in my opinion is far too generous.
This film was quite watchable and overall it didn't bore me, but personally it is not something I expect I will watch again, at least not any time soon.