Confessions of a Dog

Filmed back in 2005, director Gen Takahashi struggled to get Confessions of a Dog screened domestically, its depiction of police corruption apparently cutting too close to the bone. In a prophetic opening scene, a policeman on a sleepy beat stops a passing student (and politician’s daughter), earning himself a reprimand. “Make sure you know exactly who you’re questioning,” the Captain warns, the first sign of the rot later revealed to riddle the system.

Detective Takeda (Shun Sugata) occupies the centre of the film’s gratifyingly complex web of colleagues, criminals and civilians, his moral corrosion acquiring Shakespearean overtones as his confessional diary entries mutate into expressionistic soliloquies. Sugata, best known in the West for small parts in Kill Bill and The Last Samurai, is exceptional: genial and disciplined in the opening act; increasingly cold and intimidating as the years go by and the toll grows heavy. At over three hours, his development is anything but rushed, but it’s always absorbing. [Chris Buckle]