Yeah,
let’s hear it for rehabilitation. It will save the aging seaside town of
Uobuka. Under the mayor’s secret new plan, six convicted murders have been
granted early parole on the condition they commit to live in the quiet community
for ten years, to help reverse the outbound flow of residents to the bigger
cities. Right, what could possibly go wrong with that plan? It is the job of poor
city bureaucrat Hajime Tsukisue to make sure the scheme runs smoothly, but some
of the new residents will not be so cooperative in Daihachi Yoshida’s The Scythian Lamb (trailer here), which screens
during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.
Tsukisue
picks them up, one by one, and helps them settle in, but he is largely unaware
of their history. Hiroki Fukumoto is rather nervous, but that is okay. He’ll
just be working with scissors and razors as an employee of the town barber
shop. Reiko Ota will be an unusually sexy orderly at the senior center, which
is all fine with Tsukisue, until she commences a relationship with his father.
Shigero Ono is obviously a crusty old Yakuza, but he is truly disgusted with
his former life. Kiyomi Kurimoto is still very tightly-wound, but is she ever diligent
when it comes to cleaning. The thuggish, unrepentant Katsushi Sugiyama will be
trouble. The rather spacey Ichiro Miyakoshi could be even more so, but
initially he rather takes to the small town.
In
fact, Tsukisue finds him a rather pleasant chap. They even develop a friendship
until Miyakoshi starts dating Aya, Tsukisue’s high school crush (and current
garage band-mate), who recently returned from Tokyo, after a job and a
relationship went sour. Obviously, six
murderers in one town is a poorly conceived exercise in social engineering that
will inevitably come to a head—logically during the annual festival dedicated to
the town’s mythical sea monster, Nororo.
Masahito
Kagawa’s adaption of the source manga starts out as a sort of fish out of water
comedy, but Scythian Lamb (a
reference to Tartary myth that isn’t worth the time to explain) swerves into
noir territory during the second act. Frankly, the film probably takes a dimmer
view of rehabilitation than it sounds like the original manga did. In this case
of the film, the more reformed the killer, the more over-prosecuted they were
in the first place. Yet, Miyakoshi is a special, specially troubling case. Ryuhei
Matsuda almost reprises his performance as the awkward alien invader in Kiyoshi
Kurosawa’s Before We Vanish, but he
gives Miyakoshi a greater undercurrent of menace.
Likewise,
Ryo Nishikido brings out greater depth and dimension in Tsukikue than his
mild-mannered demeanor initially suggests. Yuka (uni-named), Min Tanaka, and
Mikako Ichikawa all shine in key supporting moments, as Ota, Ono, and Kurimoto,
respectively, while Kazuki Kitamura is aptly loathsome as Sugiyama. He can set
off your inner spider-sense with just an evil side-long glance.
There
are some terrific performances in Scythian,
but whoever designed the Nororo statue overlooking the sea deserved a cold, frosty
Sapporo. This is a richly rewarding film, precisely because it is so tricky to
pin down. Very highly recommended, The
Scythian Lamb screens Thursday night (7/5) at the Walter Reade, as part of
this year’s NYAFF.