Once a leading director of pinku films ¡ª Japan¡¯s distinctive contribution to the soft-porn genre ¡ª Takahisa Zeze has long since expanded into straight indie features, from the whimsical fantasy ¡°Dog Star¡± (2002) to the revenge drama ¡°Heaven¡¯s Story¡± (2010), with its extreme violence and length (278 minutes). More recently, he has also become a maker of commercial films, including the hit medical melodrama, ¡°The 8-Year Engagement¡± (2017).
His latest film, ¡°The Promised Land,¡± is more on the ¡°Heaven¡¯s Story¡± side of the spectrum, though it¡¯s based on two short stories by best-selling author Shuichi Yoshida and is pitched at the large audience for murder mysteries here.
The film is ambitious to a fault, examining everything from the decline of rural Japan to the traditional ostracism of the socially marginalized, be they Japanese or not.
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