THE SNOW WHITE MURDER CASE (Japan, 2014)
Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura 
Starring: Mao Inoue, Ayano Go, Nanao, Misako Renbutsu, Nobuaki Kaneko, Erena Ono 

Powered by a complicated Chinese puzzle box of a murder plot, The Snow White Murder Case is helmed by the director of Fish Story and Golden Slumbers, both NYAFF/Japan Cuts favorites, and it’s one of the best brain-teasers of the year. Based on a novel by best-selling author Kanae Minato (who wrote Confessions), the film dissects the odd goings-on behind the grim discovery of a burned-to-a-crisp corpse found in a national park near Tokyo. The victim is a young officer worker, Noriko Miki (played by ice-queen TV actress Nanao), whose stunning beauty was the object of much jealousy at the cosmetics company where she worked. The finger-pointing begins and suspicion soon turns to her plain-Jane co-worker Miki Shirono (Mao Inoue), who conveniently vanished after the murder, and is said to have harbored deep-seated feelings of envy toward her former trainee. As food blogger and part-time TV news journalist Akahoshi Yuji (Ayano Go) takes his private investigation to the rabid world of social media, the so-called Snow White Murder Case turns into an out-of-control witch hunt with a full-blown Twitter storm at its center. Brain-bending twists and turns take the viewer and the film toward the unknown and unsuspected, while the camera gives a cold and hard, but not humorless, look at the damage wrought by the pettiness of a passive-aggressive, totally connected society.