There are many contemporary viewers who believe that Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of the greatest living filmmakers, and someone who has made invaluable contributions to not only to the Japanese film industry, but global cinema as a whole. His gentle, human dramas have broken new ground and told bespoke stories, each one beautiful and compelling, even on the odd occasion where they aren’t entirely perfect, as we have seen from a director who has remained remarkably prolific for someone who produces work of such an impeccable quality. However, like any great art, Kore-eda has experimented with tone and genre in more than one instance, and one of his most compelling departures in style comes in the form of The Third Murder (Japanese: 三度目の殺人), in which the director chooses to exert his efforts into making a legal drama. The film focuses on a young lawyer who has been living in the shadow of his father, a well-regarded and highly-respected judge. It is thrown into something of a crisis when he is assigned to represent a man who has been accused of murdering his boss, and who readily admits to having committed the crime, despite a lack of a clear motive, which stirs a legal and ethical crisis in the protagonist, who begins to doubt reality the more he learns about this case. A stern but oddly captivating drama that features many of the director’s more unique traits, just translated into the form of an entirely different genre, The Third Murder is a fascinating experiment for Kore-eda, who works with this material to create a striking and engrossing film that touches on themes far deeper than those that we see at a cursory glance, which manifests in a disquieting voyage into the mind of a killer, as well as those of the people who have been hired to defend him, despite his firm belief that he is beyond salvation, which provokes many of the very challenging and deeply unnerving aspects of this off-kilter film.

The further we explore Kore-eda’s career, the clearer it becomes that he is a director with a very precise vision, and one that he applies to all of his films, despite each one being bespoke and covering different subjects and touching on a range of themes. In the case of The Third Murder, this is his opportunity to explore the legal system of his native Japan, being inspired by perceptions of the law and how it is executed on both a formal and informal level, which forms the foundation of the film, which is a layered, captivating exploration of both sides of the law, as seen through the eyes of someone who has devoted his life to standing in the shadow of an impossibly enormous legacy, and who gradually becomes intertwined in a case far more intimidating than he had initially imagined. These intersecting ideas all come to mean something quite profound throughout this film, which gives us an insightful view of the Japanese legal system without becoming unnecessarily dense or too concerned with the details or the jargon we normally would expect from such a film. It may offer a very different view of humanity than we may be used to with Kore-eda, but he replaces the domestic charm of his other films with a similarly dedicated view of the lives of those devoted to the law, on both sides of the theoretical divide. Choosing a story about someone who is not only very likely guilty, but also adamant that he did commit the crime, but without a motive or any consistency in his story, the film is able to examine many deeper themes that revolve around this concept, which is a fascinating account of this system, which remains one of the more complex, especially when dealing with a case in which the consequences are far more terrifying than simply spending the rest of one’s life in prison, which is where many of the most captivating discussions in this film are contained.

However, those who are concerned that this will be too much of a departure from the director’s usual style can have their fears at least partially alleviated, since this is very much a courtroom drama by way of Kore-eda, with the same attention to detail and character-based narrative being present, perhaps even more so than ever before, given the challenging nature of the narrative, which is almost entirely built from interactions between these individuals. Ultimately, while the exploration of the legal system is extremely fascinating, the aspect of The Third Murder that draws our attention most consistently are the more intimate moments, in which we are given access to these characters, whether through recounting their memories or existing in dialogue with one another, explaining their quandaries and their metaphysical journey to this particular moment. Once we remove the formal aspects of the film, and instead focus on the smaller details, we start to see precisely how this story takes advantage of the character-based narrative to build on a number of ideas, each one detailed and meaningful in ways that are sometimes difficult to fully encapsulate in only a few hours, but instead provoke enough engaging conversation that we are able to fill in the gaps and understand, at least partially, who these characters are and precisely what they represent, which makes for thrilling and extremely captivating viewing, and a story that is profoundly moving, even when it veers towards the more bleak and harrowing recesses of the human condition. The Third Murder is one of Kore-eda’s most haunting films, both narratively and visually, and the manner in which he constructs it (particularly those scenes set outside the prison and courtroom) create a complex world in which these characters reside, one that has many obstacles that each one of these characters have to face, but yet manage to overcome, although not in the way initially anticipated.

The Third Murder is a film that does something quite remarkable, in that it presents us with two clearly-defined characters, but challenges us to look at them as more than just one-dimensional archetypes, almost to the point where we actively find ourselves contradicting our initial impressions of these individuals. This is a credit to not only Kore-eda and his distinct approach to creating intriguing characters, but also the actors, who deliver astonishing performances that are filled with nuance, while never being entirely dependent on the specific traits associated with the broader archetypes from which they are built. Masaharu Fukuyama has the easier of the two parts, as he essentially occupies the role of the de facto interviewer, someone whose entire existence in this story is to interact with his client to find a motivation from which he can build his defence, but with every new piece of information (or in the case of his client, outright contradiction) unearths new secrets, from which he has to entirely reconfigure his approach, his challenge being interminable and dynamic, and seemingly more challenging than anything he had to face previously. On the surface, it seems like a simple role, but it is one that Fukuyama portrays extremely well, almost to the point where it feels like he is more than just the audience surrogate. The main attraction in The Third Murder is Koji Yakusho, who has the more challenging of the duelling lead roles, playing the part of the accused murderer who is on the precipice of being given the death sentence for a killing to which he openly admits, for reasons that aren’t initially clear. It takes a lot of work to play a murderer and make him charming – not in the sense that he is deceptively charismatic, but rather that he is genuinely sympathetic, which is a credit to the actor, who delivers such a warm, complex performance, we ourselves start to doubt that this character could be a cold-blooded killer, which is essentially the primary goal of this film, in that the seeds of doubt at scattered relatively early, with most of the film trying to determine whether such an individual is truly guilty of the crimes to which he admits.

The Third Murder certainly does occupy an odd place in the director’s career, since this is objectively a well-made film with many terrific ideas and components that are as close to perfection as we could get from such a polarizing story, but very few would classify this as being even in the upper-tier of Kore-eda’s work, which is less a statement on the quality of this film, and more on the impeccable work he has done in the years that surround it. He may be more comfortable with stories that draw on our sympathy in more traditional ways, but even in something as unorthodox as this film, Kore-eda delivers something spellbinding and enduring, developing on several complex ideas while retaining a level of elegance and nuance that is often unfairly overlooked in more traditional versions of this story. The Third Murder is a film in which secrets are important, not for concealing information but rather revealing it, and the story provides a sophisticated examination of a range of controversial themes, which are kept simple but never entirely hidden, instead functioning as the undercurrent for the mesmerizing but harrowing conversations embedded throughout this film. Kore-eda is a versatile director who has been able to master tone enough to have a wide spread of genres under his belt – but yet, even when making something as seemingly simple as a legal procedural, he develops on his inherent talents, forming new ideas from the small remnants that accompany him through all of his films. Meaningful, provocative and deeply moving, The Third Murder is a haunting psychological drama that proves exactly how Kore-eda has challenged conventions for over two decades, and how his work is as captivating now as it was ever before, proving that there is always a new way to view an older style of filmmaking, infusing it with life and complexity that would have otherwise not existed had this story been handled by any other filmmaker.