So this is Christmas. With Hollywood spectacles in short supply at Japanese cinemas this holiday season, Takafumi Hatano¡¯s ¡°Silent Tokyo¡± offers a tolerable alternative, like having a KFC bucket in place of a turkey dinner.
It¡¯s a snappy and preposterous thriller that imagines what would happen if a terrorist attack took place in Japan¡¯s capital on Christmas Eve. Though the end result never threatens to surpass the first two ¡°Die Hard¡± films as the Yuletide movie of choice for action-loving misanthropes, it makes a welcome break from the usual rom-coms.
On Dec. 24 in a coronavirus-free Tokyo, the festive atmosphere is barely disturbed by a non-fatal explosion in a shopping mall. Grizzled detective Shinobu Seta (Hidetoshi Nishijima) surmises that it¡¯s a dry run for something bigger, and sure enough, a video message arrives from the purported bomber, declaring that a deadlier device will go off that evening in the heart of Shibuya.
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