Over the weekend an international trailer for Takashi Miike‘s Straw Shield (Wara no Tate) was revealed, but I didn’t know enough about it to post the trailer with any kind of accompanying information. Considering the trailer isn’t in English I didn’t think that would do a large bit of good for those that wanted to give it a look. Today I have some new info courtesy of Twitch.
Here’s the synopsis:
Based on a novel by Kiuchi Kazuhiro, the movie stars Fujiwara Tatsuya as a killer named Kunihide Kiyomaru, who murders the granddaughter of a powerful figure in the political and financial world (Yamazaki Tsutomu). A few months later, Kiyomaru discovers the man has offered a 1 billion yen reward to anyone who manages to kill him. Fearing for his own life, he turns himself in to Fukuoka Prefectural Police.
Five elite Security Police are tasked with escorting Kiyomaru from Fukuoka to Tokyo, but they’re repeatedly blocked by citizens and other police looking to collect on the reward and or exact revenge. Meanwhile, a conflict arises when one of the SP officers, Mekari Kazuki (Osawa Takao), begins to doubt if they should even bother protecting a despicable person like Kiyomaru while his partner, Shiraiwa Atsuko (Matsushima Nanako), remains duty-bound.
The film opens in Japan on April 26, which means I wouldn’t be surprised if it finds its way into the Cannes Film Festival line-up in May.
The last film of Miike’s I saw was his 3-D Hara-kiri remake, which was about as dull as they come, which surprised me greatly considering Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 original was so great. Here’s to hoping this one is worth talking about.
Check out the trailer below.
