SHIELD OF STRAW DVD (2013)

SYNOPSIS: Tokyo, the present day, June. The body of a seven-year-old girl, Ninagawa Chika, is found in the district of Kitazawa, west Tokyo, and the murder is blamed by her grandfather Ninagawa Takaoki (Yamazaki Tsutomu), multi-billionaire head of Ninagawa Industrial, on Kiyomaru Kunihide (Fujiwara Tatsuya) who was released from prison the previous October. Takaoki takes out a print ad offering a ¥1 billion (US$10 million) reward to anyone who can kill Kunihide. His two conditions are that (a) whoever kills him must also be tried and punished under the law and (b) Kunihide's murder must be authorised by the government. When a drug smuggler, Tanaka, who is sheltering Kunihide in Fukuoka, southern Japan, tries to kill him, Kunihide just manages to escape and turn himself into the Fukuoka police. Lieutenant Mekari Kazuki (Osawa Takao), a hotshot with the Security Police's Unit 4, is sent from Tokyo to bring Kunihide safely back to the district attorney's office for prosecution within 48 hours. The highly skilled Shiraiwa Atsuko (Matushima Nanako) goes with him, along with veteran Okumura Takeshi (Kishitani Goro) and the younger Kanbashi Masataka (Nagayama Kento). After surviving an attack by a policeman in Fukuoka, Kunihide is hospitalised, where the four meet him. Also coming along for the ride is Captain Sekiya Kenji (Ibu Masato), head of Fukuoka police. After Kunihide survives yet another attack, the sextet sets out for the two-hour flight to Tokyo in a massive convoy to the airport. But on a special website created by Ninagawa, Kunihide's exact location is shown for anyone to have a go at killing him. After more attacks, and the cancellation of the plane, the group decides to make the 1,200-kilometre journey by bullet train instead. But it soon becomes clear there's a mole working for Ninagawa among them.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Finally there’s a Takashi Miike movie that can be enjoyed by most of the family members. While the prolific Japanese filmmaker is known more for his controversial works, Shield of Straw is a safe commercial product done in the vein of a Hollywood production.

With material based on a novel, Shield of Straw begins promisingly enough to grab your attention once the opening credits rolled. A billion yen reward is offered by one of the country’s richest men, Ninagawa to kill the murderer of his 7-year-old granddaughter, Kunihide Kyomaru (Tatsuya Fujiwara). And now it’s up to two Security Police officers, Kazuki Mekari (Takao Osawa) and Atsuko Shiraiwa (Nanako Matsushima) and three fellow cops to escort Kunihide from Fukuoka to the district attorney in Tokyo. Along the way, they must fend off countless attackers who hope to lay their hands on Kunihide.

Miike keeps one gasping for breath for the first 30 minutes as the five officers risk their lives to transport Kunihide to his destination from a bus to a high-speed train to a minivan. It’s obvious he has a hefty budget to work with that he blew a major portion of it during this time. A nitroglycerin tanker driven by an attacker served as the movie’s highlight as it crashes through numerous police cars on a highway. Then the entire convoy decides to carry on the journey by train as someone within the five of them is suspected of leaking Kunihide’s whereabouts to the media. 

Thus this is also the point where Shield of Straw starts to sputter or perhaps some executive in the movie company informed Miike that he has already blown three quarters of the budget and he has to dial things down. There’s a continuous debate of who is the mole in the group. What’s worse is the endless debate between the surviving officers on why a ruthless asshole liked Kunihide deserves to be saved from being killed. As a result, the flick turned from an action-packed crime thriller to a talk heavy philosophical crime drama for the next 85 minutes!

Kanji: The Ultimate Gambler’s star Tatsuya Fujiwara should be commended for his choice of role but his performance as a psychotic mad man stays flat. Takao Osawa fares better in the role of a tortured cop whose pregnant wife is killed in an unfortunate automobile accident while TV starlet Nanako Matsushima is impressive as the cool, ambitious Shiraiwa.

Shield of Straw is a disappointing affair considering it belongs to one of those rare Japanese action movies and one that is helmed by Takashi Miike no less. You can either choose to enjoy the first 30 minutes of it or prepare to be underwhelmed by the ludicrous climax.   

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Visually, the colors are vibrant and imaging is detailed. Sound effects during the shootouts are loud and bombastic. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee