Kôshônin (TV Movie 2003)

Kôshônin: Directed by Takashi Miike. With Hiroshi Mikami, Mayu Tsuruta, Shirô Sano, Ken’ichi Endô. After a convenience store robbery, three unidentified men hold a group of people hostage in a hospital. Inspector Ishida and Captain Tohno handle the negotiations while one of their colleagues, Lt. Ando, tries to find out why the men decided to take the hospital hostage. Through flashbacks, relevant information is revealed to the audience. When the negotiations are finished, most things seem to be fine… until they lose track of the criminals. Then, the story unveils from a different perspective, its roots in feelings of love and vengeance.

“This looked like a standard hostage thriller until I realized how cleverly made it is. In the beginning you see three helmeted robbers robbing a gas station and then the next thing you see is they take over a hospital. In this part we follow the investigators, the negotiator and it is so tense that you never notice there were no explosions or gunfire or that you donu0026#39;t get to see what the bad guys are up to at all.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat follows is remarkably tight, the story is of course not 100% credible, but that doesnu0026#39;t matter at all. I usually hate thrillers, but this is so intelligent I cant help liking it. Miike is a man full of ideas, many good, problem is he donu0026#39;t work enough with them. Here it is definitely good enough.”