Synopsis

Wakatsuki (Uchino Masaaki), an insurance adjuster in Kanazawa, a small city on Japan's west coast, gets an anonymous phone call from a woman who asks if his company will pay out on a life-insurance policy where the death is by suicide. Assuming the woman is considering killing herself, he counsels her against it. Shortly after he is called to the home of Komoda Shigenori (Nishimura Masahiko) where he opens a sliding door to reveal the dangling body of a boy who has apparently hanged himself.

The circumstances are suspicious, and in the investigation which follows it emerges that Komoda has, under another name, been blacklisted after losing a thumb in an accident the firm suspected was not accidental. Wakatsuki suspects that Komoda has actually murdered the boy, the son of his wife Sachiko (Otake Shinobu) by a previous marriage, and, since there is also a policy on Sachiko, could be planning to murder her as well. His psychologist girlfriend Megumi (Tanaka Misato) introduces him to a criminal psychiatrist, Kaneish (Katsura Kenichi), who sees in an elementary-school essay written by Komoda the profile of a ruthless psychopathic killer. Megumi, however, sees more potential for danger in a similar essay written by Sachiko. Kaneishi is found tortured to death, and Wakatsuki writes Sachiko an anonymous letter warning her against her husband, but is then startled when she and Shigenori submit an insurance claim following another accident in which Shigenori has lost both his hands. The company sends a professional contract-terminator to see the Komodas in hospital. Sachiko assumes this is Wakatsuki's doing, and he comes out of the elevator in his apartment building to find her going in his front door. Monitoring Sachiko from a pay phone outside as she trashes his apartment, he learns that she has taken Megumi captive.

Film Festivals & Awards

Director Bio

Born in 1950 in Tokyo, a Broadcasting graduate of Nihon University, Morita Yoshimitsu began his career with an 8mm film, "Alive in Chigasaki," in 1978, making his first feature-film debut in 1981 with "Something like Yoshiwara." "Family Game" (1983) brought him international attention, and since then he has applied his taste for experimentation and ironic sense of humor to a wide variety of genres. "Haru" (1995) explored the nuances of love on the internet, while "Lost Paradise" (1997), a tale of infidelity, is one of the highest-grossing live-action films ever made in Japan. "Keiho" (1999) was selected for competition in the Berlin Film Festival

Cast & Crew

Technical Info