Review | Toronto 2020: Under the Open Sky movie review – engrossing drama from Miwa Nishikawa sees Koji Yakusho shine as ex-convict
- Koji Yakusho delivers an enthralling turn as a middle-aged gangster trying to find his place in Japanese society after serving a long prison term for murder
- Directed with sympathy by Miwa Nishikawa, the film ends on an ironic note, but one that chimes with the moral quandaries characters in her work often face
4/5 stars
Mikami, we learn, was abandoned by his geisha mother when he was four and raised in an orphanage until he entered organised crime as a teenager. He eventually came to be known as the “brawler” of his syndicate, and was imprisoned for brutally killing a hoodlum who brought trouble to the hostess bar he and his then-wife, Kumiko (Narumi Yasuda), had opened.
Even with the assistance of his lawyer/benefactor (Isao Hashizume) and welfare services case worker (Yukiya Kitamura), the hot-tempered Mikami struggles to find an ordinary job to support himself because of his checkered past and multiple spells in prison. His body ailing and covered in scars and tattoos, his driving licence expired – and his skills behind the wheel clearly waning – he is unsuited to a driving job, and in danger of going back to his old ways.