Review | Film review: Rage – Lee Sang-il’s slow-burning tale of a killer in the midst
Korean-Japanese director examines paranoia and distrust in three unrelated stories about a mysterious drifter who could possibly be a murderer
3.5/5 stars
An unsolved double murder in a Tokyo suburb brings out the worst instincts in three sets of people in Rage, a slow-burning drama on the paranoia and distrust inherent in human relationships.
As his second adaptation from a Shuichi Yoshida novel (his first, 2010’s Villain, was a major hit), Korean-Japanese director Lee Sang-il’s mystery film engrosses for much of the time before its overly melodramatic final act, which is set to split the audiences right down the middle.
Before then, Rage weaves together three unrelated stories – set a year after the homicide case, in three different cities – which respectively involve the arrival of a mysterious drifter with an unspeakable past.
In a small town of Chiba, worried widower Yohei (Ken Watanabe) is torn between relief and anguish when his vulnerable daughter Aiko (Aoi Miyazaki), stigmatised by her experience as a sex worker, moves in with a lonely dockworker, Tashiro (Kenichi Matsuyama), whose records appear to be fabricated.