Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Aristides-2 A huge story absurdity takes place mid-film that I couldn't shake for the rest of it. A detective investigating a very complicated murder case with minimal clues, is on a Japanese train and by chance, spots a woman he's never seen before, throwing hundreds of small white pieces of cloth out of the window. The cloth turns out to be the cut-up missing bloodied shirt of the killer he's looking for and the woman is involved in the cover-up neck high! Question: How many multi-millions of people were living in the Tokyo region in 1973? How many of them were riding trains? What are the odds of these two people meeting on the train? But a larger problem for me has to do with the Why of it all. After the movie's very thorough 2.5 hour examination and analysis of why the bad guy killed the good guy, is that I never believed the reason given for the killing. So the bad guy fudged his birth certificate and continued the fiction of his antecedents. So what? (Unless something like that in the Japanese character makes the reveal so hideous that a person could kill to conceal it.)

poikkeus CASTLE OF SAND is an engrossing, laid-back police procedural that captures your attention even when the plot seems fairly ordinary. A Tokyo cop (Tetsuro Tamba) is troubled when a retired cop is found brutally murdered, with no evidence save the vague recollections of a few townsfolk. At times, the story is reminiscent of a regional travelogue, but in learning more about Japan, Tamba hones in on a small set of likely suspects, but everyone is so agreeable that uncovering the truth becomes like rooting out the one hidden evidence of violence in a sea of potential data. Regrettably, the film unravels in the final forty or so minutes, when the remainder of the story is told with musical accompaniment of a famous pianist. The plot becomes frankly loses credibility and even becomes rather nonsensical. The movie changes mood and style, and dripping with melodrama.

Drucilla_Black I saw "The Castle of Sand" at a Japanese Film Festival this year in Sydney, and I must say that I'm surprised that this movie isn't better known as it's so beautifully made and incredibly moving...It's one of those near-perfect gems that are few and far between. It's a fairly long movie at nearly 2.5 hours, but the movie is one that draws you in very quickly and keeps you wondering up until the very end.The plot centres around the mysterious murder of Miki, a retired policeman in his 60's who was well-liked by pretty much everyone who knew him for his kindness and integrity. Two detectives, one a rookie and one fairly older, are assigned to the case and what at first seems like three unrelated stories slowly weave together to reveal the reasons and the person behind Miki's death. Even if you're not a fan of foreign movies, "The Castle of Sand" is still definitely worth a watch.

noirfilm At first, I thought this was going to be a standard murder-mystery story. A police detective doggedly pursues slim clues all over the map to find a murderer. However, when the events which led up to the crime are revealed through flashbacks, the story takes an emotional turn which even brings tears to the detective's eyes. Like most Japanese movies, it starts slowly but comes alive at the end. I recommend it.