THE DEVIL’S PATH (Japan, 2013)
Director: Shiraishi Kazuya 
Starring: Takayuki Yamada, Pierre Taki, Chizuru Ikewaki, Lily Franky, Kazuko Shirakawa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Katsuya Kobayashi, Yu Saito (Hino Yoshimasa)   

An ambitious, brooding character study that intelligently tackles heavy issues like press ethics, the nature and causes of crime, the throes of guilt, the (im)possibility of redemption, and, at the deepest level, everyday banal evil, The Devil’s Path is a slow burn that shows the hellish torment of a guilty conscience as it chronicles the case of a condemned yakuza played by actor-singer Pierre Taki. Seeking revenge on his former accomplice he reaches out to a journalist (Takayuki Yamada), and reveals details about three unknown killings. The film is a claustrophobic journey to the end of the night, and like the journalist to whom the dark tale is told, hardens its emotions, anxieties, and energies into a hard shell of obsession. For the death-row gangster who’s now found God, killing is (was?) just part of the package—the costs of doing business as a yakuza. For his smilingly two-faced accomplice (Lily Franky), killing is just fun. And fun is good. The Devil’s Path is caught between these two stygian souls as it relates their deeds, and it ultimately becomes an expression of philosophical despair: truth and justice can never be known.