I HATED this movie. It opens with an incredibly gruesome murder scene, then goes on to imply that it's really not so bad to kill someone, as long as you "have a reason". Oh, and everyone will forgive you for it afterward, even if you don't show any remorse.<br /><br />The characters' motivations are weak: an entire village falls in love with the hero, although he hardly says two words the entire film. The main female character inexplicably prefers washing old men's hair and making her boss' lunch to being a successful businesswoman in the city. And why is it that the murderer has so little trouble dealing with his own crime? Could it be because he's a psychopath? Probably, but we never find out for sure, because the filmmaker never goes beneath the surface to explore anything. Instead, he constantly changes tone, going from a Bill Forsyth sort of whimsy to inferior attempts at Hitchcockian suspense.<br /><br />Some of the acting is good, but the star of the much better "Shall We Dance" gives a wooden performance here.<br /><br />Some of my problems with the movie may have come from cultural differences. The murderer gets only 2 years in prison, according to the subtitles--could that be because the courts of Japan would consider his crime "justified"? (note--someone snarkily emailed me that it's actually 8 years; I'm not going to watch the movie again to check that fact, but 8 years still doesn't seem like much to me for murder.) The director made some heavyhanded comments about the murderer's sufferings in prison, but I thought the killer got off lightly. Also, I didn't understand the ending of the film--I was hoping it would say something to indicate that the director didn't really support the murder at the beginning, but instead it seemed to me to draw parallels between the victim and the murderer that I didn't think were appropriate.<br /><br />This movie makes me feel angry every time I think of it. I'm planning to avoid any other films by the same director.