Suzuki=Bakudan
After a drunken scuffle with a vending machine, a man predicts bombings in Tokyo during a police interrogation—and moments later, one goes off. This taut Japanese thriller has its world premiere at R&A!
A homeless-looking man is at the police station, detained for breaking a vending machine. He says his name is Tagosaku Suzuki, but claims he doesn’t remember his address, nor does he carry an ID. During the interrogation, Suzuki starts to predict an imminent explosion, and when a bomb actually goes off in Akibahara, the police start taking Suzuki’s ramblings seriously. The man seems to be able to predict the bombings happening around Tokyo. However, he refuses to hand over the information straightforwardly, and instead presents different guessing and deduction games for the detectives. Is Suzuki the man behind the bombings, does he have an accomplice, or does he just have a mysterious ability to predict the future?
Suzuki, whose last name is one of Japan’s most common names, the Jones of Japan, is like an empty reflection through which the others have to assess themselves. Young detective Ruike asks Todoroki to do research on an old case, in which his supervisor was caught up in a scandal. The investigation of Suzuki’s identity leads to interesting tracks, but what is the final connection between the suspects and Suzuki? The police negotiator Ruike plays a game of tag with Suzuki, while the other detectives run around Tokyo trying to sort out the chaos of increasing numbers of bomb victims.
The film is based on Katsuhiro Go’s thriller novel Bakudan.
Eija Niskanen (translated by Charlotte Elo)
