Suspect X (2008)

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

WARNING: THIS COMMENTARY CONTAINS INPORTANT SPOILERS. SO PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE MOVIE. The movie comes across as pulpy in the first 10 minutes (I didn't know it came from a book and TV series when I watched it). The characters of the supposed leads, Masaharu Fukuyama and Ko Shibasaki, are one-dimensional throughout. Thankfully, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi and Yasuko Matsuyuki brought depth and weight. Tsutsumi especially. He draws you in with his portrayal of his character. It's enigmatic and convincing. A very fine actor indeed.The movie shines when it delves into the human drama and the contest of wits and wills between the two male protagonists. The mountain climbing segment is superb, a magnificent allegory of the intellectual power-play between the two men. ***SPOILERS*** Unfortunately, the movie didn't succeed fully on the logical brilliance it is premised on. There seems to be two serious flaws. First is the identification of the body through matching the fingerprints found on the bicycle with those from the hotel the victim stayed in. Certainly real-life police would know that is inconclusive. They would certainly confirm only with fingerprints on official records.Secondly, a man of Ishigami's brilliance could certainly foretell that the likelihood of Kanaoka accepting his sacrifice is low to start with, or at least there is no guarantee of his plan's success. And Kanaoka would hear about it from news whether Yukawa tells her about it or not. And for Ishigami to take an innocent life is totally inconsistent with his character, no matter how powerful and overwhelming love is. The movie would have been great if not for these flaws. But it is still a pretty good movie principally because of Tsutsumi's performance and the human drama. I would have given it at least 8/10 if not for the logic flaws.

I am not a big fan of movies which are based on books. Just look at what they did with Harry Potter and others (LOTR is an exception). So I wasn't much excited when my friend told me it was based on a book and I tried not to watch it. He practically had to make me sit through the first 15 minutes of the movie to make sure I was intrigued. Well, I am glad he made me watch it because Suspect X is one the best mystery thriller movies I've watched in the last couple of years.Suspect X is a story of a murdered husband, a wife, a daughter and two geniuses. Manabu Yukawa is a scientist who helps out the police once in a while. And Tetsuya Ishigami is Mathematician who lives next door to the wife of the murdered man. Both have their reasons to be involved. The story is written tightly. The cinematography is hauntingly beautiful.The strongest point of the movie is the interactions of the two geniuses. When they are there talking, you don't want to miss a second of their conversation. They are not conniving and trying to out do each other. They are just old friends talking. And that's what makes this movie so special. I highly recommend it to those who love Hitchcock movies.Note: I don't know Japanese and watched this movie with English Subtitles. It in no way affected the mood of the movie.

Not sure too many people will be watching this movie outside of Japan, I have caught it on DVD here in Indonesia and i found it a very interesting movie to watch. Japanese do things differently, like the French, and this was a crime thriller not so much about catching the killer or having to find out who did it but about motivation. the maths teacher Mr AShiguro is obviously essential to this story and I love the scene towards the end up the snowy mountain, great drama and great scenery, wow! I sense a naivity in the basic story line and I would have liked to see more understanding and reasoning behind why the husband returned at that particular time in the womans life; reference is made to her having first met him at a Club, so was she a geisha girl or stripper or something before or just a bar girl? Not aware this is part of a series and the DVD is entitled SUSPECT X, easier title than the one above. of course I watched with satisfactory sub-titles in English. The film is well put together but even so I cant highly rate it, hence only 6 points.

The following is my reply to Charlie Ishiyama's queries raised in his review in this site;"First, why was the suspect X or the math genius in terrible despair?" If attention is paid to the entire length of the movie itself, subtle hints were dropped throughout which I feel answered this query adequately. We know he would have had a brilliant career if not for his mother's illness which took him away from his work and ended up in a dead end job as an under-appreciated Math teacher in high school. He was alone, lonely and naturally emotionally despair. He looked old despite his relatively not that old age and he is unsatisfied both in life, love and especially in his career, not having realized his full potential and to have Yukawa declared him as a genius, it is quite obvious for the reasons for his terrible despair."Second, how could the heroine and her daughter cheer up this unsociable mathematician and help him to rebound from that despair?" Again subtlety explained this question. The end of the movie revealed why. He was about to kill himself when he was interrupted by friendly new neighbor, in the form of the heroine and her daughter, both cheerful and lovely. That woke him up and listening to their daily banter through the thin wall separating the 2 tiny apartments made him feel like he was part of their family that he so craves. He was lifted out of despair with the promise or rather the hope that one day he might be part of that family although he may wished but never really actually wanted to try to do that. The fact that he is unsociable and he seems so surprised at the knock on the door meant he has never had such welcome before by friendly neighbors. His loneliness dissipated with their appearance and along the way he fell for her."And third, how could the accidental death of the pimp or the ex-husband of the heroine be significant enough to involve all innocent people into tragedy and had them resign to their fate? It was a premise to thoroughly describe above why and how to develop characters and convince me of X's self-sacrifice or his unconditional love, I thought." There wasn't many innocent people, just 2, one is suspect x himself and the other I shall not reveal to preserve the integrity of the ending. The point is that of shock and to bring into question about how far suspect x would go to preserve the life of his beloved. That is the shock element in the end, one that even Yukawa never thought of despite his genius in deduction and in the end not just left the heroine broken due to her conscience or Suspect X due to his cruel foolishness but also Yukawa who had more faith in his friend than his friend deserves and that broke Yukawa as a person. If you have watched from the TV series to the movie itself, Yukawa is a man of logic but in this movie he contemplated other things other than logic and that presented a different facet of Yukawa. In the end this is a movie about Yukawa Manabu and how his friend suspect x broke him down in the sense Yukawa may have won the deduction battle but he still lost in the end. In fact everybody losses. A significant dialog that summarizes Yukawa's conflict and Ishigami's sacrifice is the question posed by Yukawa to Utsumi and Utsumi's answer to him at the end. It sounds simplistic, that one word, love but it is perhaps as complicated as presented in this movie."By the way, If I were the X, I would recommend she give herself up to the police and confess that she had no choice but protect her and her daughter in self-defence." Maybe the stigma is different in Japan? Maybe the sentencing is different? I believe this movie is really clever in presenting the situation and how 2 men approach the same situation differently. If you're thinking this is about how one man created alibis and how the other solves it, you're wrong. This is a movie that goes beyond that. It is repetitive at some places, some slow paces but in the end it is a brilliant movie that after it finishes and a long time after makes you think; is Suspect X a villain or the good guy? Was the heroine foolish to do what she did in the end despite the sacrifices of the other? Was Yukawa right to reveal the truth which would hurt everybody? How far would one go for the sake of love? How much would one do for the sake of gratitude? How much would one reveal for the sake of the truth? This movie reveals that through 3 important characters.It is decidedly darker than the TV series but no less brilliant in its plot, clever in the ending and made very stylishly. Performance wise, I find everybody brilliant and a great big credit must go to the 2 very charismatic actors, Fukuyama Masaharu for standing his ground against a more accomplished & well known as an actor, Tsutsumi Shinichi and of course Tsutsumi Shinichi himself. I didn't quite like Matsuyuki Yasuko because I do not like the typical acting by a Japanese actress (heavy breathing, slow mo action). My only other complaint is the stupidity of the police and the lack of role given to the brilliant Kou Shibasaki. Highly recommended. A pity it was not released worldwide. Do watch the TV version, Galileo. More lighthearted but really clever how the crimes are committed and then solved.For a fuller review, do check my review at my site, www.point2e.com under the Movies section.