20 June 2020

Zero Focus (Japan, 1961)

Kenichi and Teiko Uhara are one week newlyweds. Promoted to his company Hakuho Ad Agency's Tokyo headquarters, Kenichi heads on a short business trip back to Kanazawa, where he was that branch office's manager, to wrap up his business there, leaving Teiko alone in Tokyo to unpack their apartment. Although he is reported to have left Kanazawa to head back to Tokyo on the day planned, he doesn't come home on the scheduled day, without anyone in his and Teiko's personal life or his business colleagues knowing what happened to him.

Zero Focus unravels like an Hitchcockian ball of yarn, slowly putting the pieces together and never gives away too much. If this film had been made in the west it would've had James Stewart and Grace Kelly in the lead roles. Director Yoshitaro Nomura is considered as a pioneer of Japanese noir and also worked with Akira Kurosawa on The Idiot (1951), while himself directed as many as 89 films in total.


Genre: Drama/Mystery

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