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THE HOVERING BLADE

SAMAYOU YAIBA

By Shoichi MASHIKO

TOEI COMPANY, LTD. - as SALES All rights

Documentary - Completed 2009

The Hovering Blade, notable among Keigo Higashino's works for being a ‘problem novel’ in its exploration of the tension between Japan’s Juvenile Law and the feelings of the victims of juvenile crime, is a solid best-seller with sales to date of more than a million copies and now makes screen debut.

- Year of production
- 2009
- Genres
- Documentary, Crime
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 112 mn
- Director(s)
- Shoichi MASHIKO
- Writer(s)
- Keigo HIGASHINO, Shoichi MASHIKO
- Cast
- Akira TERAO, Yutaka TAKENOUCHI, Shiro ITO
- Synopsis
- Two youths commit a series of vicious rapes. The ‘Juvenile Law’ protects them.
  ‘I have lost my wife, so my daughter Ema was the only family I had, a treasure nothing can replace. Her very existence gave the rest of my life its meaning.’
  Hideki Nagamine is in the depths of despair when he receives an anonymous phone call telling him the names of the two youths who have raped and killed his beloved daughter.
  ‘Under the laws of our land, they are under-age, and will not receive an adult sentence.’
  Knowing full well that vengeance will be an empty act solving nothing, he nonetheless sets out after the perpetrators.
  Meanwhile, two detectives, Takashi Oribe and Shinichi Mano, are in pursuit of Nagamine.
  The victim’s despair will never fade. The under-age assailants will never receive a sentence appropriate to their crime.
  ‘We’re spending days on this case to give him a chance to reform, and hide him somewhere so Nagamine and the others can’t get at him.’
  ‘That’s our legal system. What can we do?’
  The detectives feel the contradiction in having to give priority to their fundamental duty, which is to uphold the law.
  Both sides grapple with their own doubts as the case draws to a completely unexpected conclusion.