Villain - review

Adapted from a bestseller by Shuichi Yoshida, it has a murdering anti-hero who longs for love and a take on Japanese society that hands out a few home truths.

Played out mostly on the provincial island of Kyushu, its chief character is a working-class boy (Satoshi Tsumabuki), who rapes and kills a young woman after a blind date.

Later, he meets a shopworker (Eri Fukatsu) whom he takes to an hotel for sex but finds himself unable to forget. He lives with his grandmother, having been deserted by his mother, which the film claims to be the reason for his difficulties with relationships.

Once he's hooked by the second girl, however, the story develops into a strange kind of Bonnie and Clyde epic, complete with a hiding place in a remote lighthouse and the police only a few steps behind.

A reasonably affecting melodrama, the film's best moments concern not the principals, but the desperate father of the murdered girl (Eimoto Akira) and the sad grandmother of the killer (the wonderful Kiki Kirin).

These two command the attention as the reaction of friends and public turn their lives upside down.

Villain is too long, with a propensity for cliché at vital moments, but its best parts are very good and Lee's direction makes the most of them.

Villain
Cert: 15