Blind Witness (2019)

aka (the even more generic) The Witness

Original title: 見えない目撃者 (Mienai Mokugekisha)

Just when she has graduated from her police training as the best person in her class, Natsume (Riho Yoshioka) causes a car accident that leaves her blind and kills her teenage brother. So much for the police career, too, obviously, though there are no other legal troubles following for her, apparently. The PTSD and the loss of her sight is gonna be punishment enough.

Three years later, when the main part of the film is set, Natsume is clearly still trying to cope with what she caused, and feeling pretty useless and helpless. However, she’s also rather courageous when angry and exits a row with her mother by simply walking off with her seeing eye dog, having to cross half of her city to get home. On the way, she witnesses what she believes to be the abduction of a teenage girl. The police – clearly not understanding that blind people in movies are all at least half of the time Daredevil – are rather sceptical of her tale at first. They do check up on a second witness – soon to be high school drop-out Haruma (Mahiro Takasugi) – but what he’s telling them doesn’t really support the important parts of Natsume’s tale, so they drop the case, such as it is.

Natsume knows what she’s heard (and smelled and etc), though, and has a pretty great investigative mind to boot, so she’s starting on an investigation of her own, soon getting Haruma with the program, digging up enough material to at least convince veteran policeman Kimura (Tomorowo Taguchi) that there’s a series of kidnappings of teenage girls in the sex trade happening – perhaps even something still worse than that.

As regular readers will know, I’m not terribly fond of the serial killer thriller sub-genre, a part of the thriller and horror genres that has always felt terribly limited in scope and possibilities to me (though there are of course exceptions to the rule), with movie serial killers also simply not being all that scary or interesting to me.

Having said that, I enjoyed Junichi Mori’s remake of the South Korean film Blind (which I haven’t seen, so can’t compare) just fine. It’s not exactly doing much new with its genre, but I found myself appreciating its unhurried pace, the competent and until the final act consciously undramatic performances, as well as the willingness it shows to change protagonists for a bit when it doesn’t make sense for our amateur detectives to find a clue but for their official ally.

Once we get to it, the killer and his ritual are perfectly workable stuff, rather more realistic than some of the very convoluted modes typical of the genre, yet feeling threatening enough. Until the final act, it’s all presented very calmly, with a couple of well done stalking scenes to keep the audience engaged, but mostly focussed on the investigation – where the calm tone fits very well.

Of course, things become less calm for the final act, but the tonal shift itself is realized as calmly and efficiently as most of the film. The series of only mildly over the top suspense scenes that ensues is not terribly plausible, but definitely well done as well as pleasantly gruesome, leaving the film on a high note.