Japanese film director Masayuki Suo speaks in front of a poster of his latest film 'I Just Didn't Do It' during an interview in Tokyo on Thursday.-Reuters
TOKYO, Japan (AP):
Japanese director Masayuki Suo had an international hit a decade ago with the movie Shall We Dance? Now he's offering much more serious fare: a film that challenges Japan's secretive and lethargic justice system.
The movie, I Just Didn't Do It, documents the legal battle of a man mistakenly accused of groping a woman on a jam-packed commuter train in Tokyo, taking aim at a court system with a suspiciously high 99 per cent conviction rate.
"I had to make this film because of the outrage ... that I felt as a Japanese over the injustice in this country," Suo said, accusing courts of favouring the prosecution over the rights of the accused. "I simply couldn't look the other way."
In a country where top films - romances, action movies and animation - are not often seen as a venue for social commentary, Suo's latest work stands out. The movie has been in the top five box-office draws in Japan since its January 20 release.
"The film deals with a rare theme, but everyone can relate to the topic, because groping is a widespread problem, and this could happen to anyone," said Takeshi Otaki, an official at the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan.
The film stars Ryo Kase, who played a former military policeman in Clint Eastwood's World War II saga Letters From Iwo Jima. Koji Yakusho, the main character in Shall We Dance?, plays his top lawyer.
Ballroom dancing hit
Suo, whose ballroom dancing hit Shall We Dance? (1996) was remade in Hollywood starring Richard Gere in 2004, said I Just Didn't Do It was prompted by the unusual case of an office worker acquitted of groping on appeal after a five-year legal battle.
Pleading innocent is rare in Japan, where defendants - facing near certain conviction - are pressed to admit guilt as a way of winning leniency. Police are known for heavy-handed measures to get suspects to confess, rather than conducting the investigations needed to build a solid case.
Suo said groping - a serious problem on Japan's crowded trains - is the type of accusation open to abuse because prosecutors can press charges without establishing a motive, except that a suspect is a male.
Police take advantage of suspects' fear of public shame and urge them to sign confessions, he said. If convicted, gropers can face up to 10 years in prison. About 1,900 men were arrested for the crime in Tokyo in 2005, police say.
The film is one of the latest additions to the boom in made-in-Japan movies.
Last year, Japanese films were more popular at home than their competitors from Hollywood, Hong Kong and other countries for the first time in 21 years with box-office revenues of 107.75 billion yen (US$892.7 million) in 2006, up from nearly 82 billion yen the previous year.
Suo's film also comes at a time when Japan is trying to reform its court system, planning to introduce jury trials for criminal cases in 2009. Under the present system, a panel of judges render verdicts and sentences.
