Movie #251 Andarushia: Megami No Houfuku *2011*

I am really doing some tough reviews now that I am close to ending my blogging hiatus.  This film is the one that I saw while I was in Japan.  It was totally in Japanese without subtitles.  The closest I came to understanding the dialouge was when a brief few instances the characters spoke in Spanish.  Also my extremely poor Japanese allowed me to understand when numbers or times or dates and names were being said.  That was about it.

This is the best I could make of the movie:

The movie is set in Spain. A young woman knows about some top secret governmental activities.  She appears to be a spy or secret agent.  There is a suicide early in the movie and she has to cover all the track of the departed.  That lead me to believe that this was a partner of hers?  From this point it seems that 2 different law enforcement agencies get involved.  Both are headed up by Japanese men.  They seem to have respect for each other, but they clearly have different opinions about the nature of the woman and what her involvement was in the incident.

The older man seems to fall for the girls story (and the girl).  He seems to be the higher level agency.  Maybe an Interpol type serviceman.  The younger man seems like a local detective.  He appears to be more skeptical of the woman and her motives.  He is assigned to protect her so that she may testify in court.  He doesn't always do a great job and the older man has to get involved for the sake of all involved.

The end comes with a few twists and turns.  There was clearly a tip of the hat to The Usual Suspects in the movie that you didn't have to speak Japanese to understand.  You only had to know the language of cinema, which I am fluent in. 

In my opinion I think this movie could play very well for Western audiences.  It was impeccably shot, lit and edited.  It was dramatic without going for a more traditional Japanese melodramatic style.  I suppose I could be totally wrong about what was going on, but I think I am pretty close.  If not, I might have the frame work of my next script.

I give Andarushia: Megami No Houfuku ★★★1/2.