Sham (Drama)

Rating:

Director: Takashi Miike
Producer: Shigeji Maeda,Kenichi Wasano,Misako Saka,Keiichi Hashimoto
Screenwriter: Hayashi Mori
Cinematographer: Hideo Yamamoto

It’s a case of perception vs reality in this twisty, slippery courtroom drama from prolific genre-loving cult hero Takashi Miike.

It’s 2003, and Seichii is caught in the middle of a scandal. A primary school teacher in Fukuoka, he’s been accused by Ritsuko (Kō Shibasaki, reuniting with the director two decades after One Missed Call, MIFF 2004) of a systematic campaign of racially motivated abuse and bullying against her son, who has just attempted suicide. It’s the kind of horror story that sends the media into a frenzy and facilitates presumptions of guilt; but as the eventual court case proceeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine which details are actually true.

The latest from indefatigable Japanese auteur Takashi Miike offers a change of pace from his usual high-impact, ultraviolent fare. Having depicted the courtroom as a madcap battle royale in Ace Attorney (MIFF 2012), Miike now helms a sincere interrogation of legal procedure in which notions like truth and fiction are blurred by narrative positioning, characters’ diverging testimonies and media angles. Based on the 2017 book Fabrication by journalist Masumi Fukuda – and unexpectedly resonating with the theme of school bullying seen in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s tender, tragic Monster (MIFF 2023) – Sham is an ever-shifting, expectation-defying study of wrongdoing, perspective and perception.

“Reserved with a quiet rage … an expertly crafted work of minimalism from a master who is playing a few new notes.” – The Film Stage