Watching the Detectives: Ryoko Shinohara is Natsumi Yukihira in Unfair – The Movie
This spin off film from a Japanese TV series suffers on two counts, firstly it’s trying to be Die Hard in a hospital but hasn’t got nearly enough action to keep the audiences attention, and secondly it relies too heavily on viewers having seen the original series, something most western audiences won’t have done as the DVD release lacked English subtitles (makes you wonder why they bothered putting them on this really).
Picking up (I’m guessing) where the series left off, we find police officer Natsumi Yukihira visiting here daughter in hospital. It seems the kid was a victim of a car bombing, with Yukihira the intended target. It’s not long before the hospital is taken over by a mask wearing band of villains, who not only kidnap the a high ranking police official who’s receiving treatment at the hospital but also get there hands on some Anthrax that’s stored there. Why is Anthrax stored in a hospital? Simply because the plot requires it. Likewise there is only enough vaccine to cure one person because Yukihira’s daughter becomes infected and to much vaccine wouldn’t be dramatic enough. So it’s Yukihira Vs a gang of heavily armed terrorists, which may sound exciting (if derivative) but really isn’t. Yukihira isn’t much of an action hero, she only takes out a couple of the bad guys, with the bulk of the action (and there isn’t much) falling to fellow officer Yuji Kokubo.
The film never manages to make you feel there’s any real danger; you know Yukihira will save her daughter and that the terrorists will be stopped from releasing the Anthrax. There’s much character interplay that needs prior knowledge of the characters to understand, so maybe if you’re acquainted with the series this would be a better film but I doubt it. None of the cast are particularly memorable (the kid, Mion Mukaichi, gives the best performance) the direction lacks any flair and the soundtrack features a Japanese pop song that’s guaranteed to make you heave.
