Masaharu Fukuyama and Koji Yakusho in The Third Murder (Film Movement)

This absorbing legal drama opens with a brutal murder, in which an older man (Koji Yakusho) strikes another with a blunt object and, while pinning him down, continues to pummel him. The assailant subsequently burns the body, during which we get our first good look at his face. His expression is mostly cool and emotionless, although the longer we stare, we detect something else subtly registering across his features—satisfaction, perhaps?

From there, The Third Murder settles into the more low-key style of a procedural. The next time the killer, Misumi, appears, he is in jail, meeting with his attorney for the first time. Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama), who has a brilliant legal mind, was brought on because Misumi has proven a tricky client. Despite confessing after his arrest, he has changed his story with every interrogation, leaving his first lawyer unsure which strategy to pursue. In addition, the thinking seems to be that Shigemori might have personal insights into Misumi, as his father was the judge who sentenced him for two other murders 30 years earlier.

With his client likely to receive the death penalty, Shigemori’s strategy is to argue the robbery-homicide charge down to murder and theft, which is punishable by life in prison instead. He doggedly pursues evidence that the killing was not motivated by theft—he observes that the victim’s wallet, which was found on Misumi’s person, smells of gasoline. If the original intent had been to rob, why didn’t Misumi grab it before setting fire to the corpse? He also interviews his client’s co-workers as to whether he held a grudge against the deceased, who owned a local food factory and recently fired him. The conditions there, it turns out, amounted to exploitation. 

As Shigemori digs for Misumi’s true motivations that fateful night, viewers start to see the killing—and the killer himself—in a different light. At first, it seems Misumi had been seeking payback for his mistreatment at the ex-employer’s hands, but then other prospective misdeeds emerge involving the victim’s widow and his teenage daughter, Sakie (Suzu Hirose), who, as Shigemori discovers, struck up a friendship with Misumi not long before the killing. 

Along with delivering on its share of twists and turns, The Third Murder follows Shigemori as he learns to view Misumi as a person, not just a pawn in his legal strategy. It’s a satisfying transformation to witness. At first, the attorney is thoroughly detached from his client and his own colleagues. He has a teenage daughter, who only contacts him when she needs bailing out of trouble, and although his father (Isao Hashizume) is alive and occasionally visits, his relationship with him is cool at best. It takes being pulled into the complicated bond between the unrepentant killer and young Sakie that stirs Shigemori from his numbness.

The two male leads share a fire-and-ice chemistry: Shigemori being incredibly stoic, while Misumi is frequently unrestrained in his mannerisms. The latter is the one who forces the other to cross the gulf between them, at one point placing his hand against a pane of glass separating them and telling Shigemori to do the same. It’s a strangely beautiful moment in which the two men connect, which leads to a deeper understanding between them.  

Director Hirokazu Kore-eda previously made the sublime After the Storm, which among its many offbeat pleasures, offered a sympathetic portrait of a ne’er-do-well and part-time con artist. He is a filmmaker who embraces complex characters, and that is fully evident in Misumi, who first comes across as eerily calm and then reveals other sides of himself in later interviews. Above all, he seems to crave connection to his fellow human beings and to be treated with dignity. Although these twin goals lead him to make decisions that seem unwise—and in turn, represent the only point in the film that the audience is strangely one step ahead of Shigemori—there’s also an undeniable poignancy to them.

Kore-eda is also known for the contemplative pacing of his films, which often capture the rhythms of everyday life. Here it also emphasizes his characters’ alienation, as they often appear caught up in their innermost thoughts, even when others exist within the same frame. In addition, Kore-eda effectively utilizes darkness and light for their lyrical qualities: the courthouse sequences are shadowy, appropriate for a place in which legal strategizing frequently obscures the delivery of justice. The only significant light is in the room where Misumi and Shigemori regularly meet, although Kore-eda sets a dream sequence involving an idyllic snowball fight against a starkly white backdrop.

This is a handsomely made, well-acted entry in the legal procedural genre, which, despite its references to Japanese criminal law, should be accessible to most viewers. If it seems slightly more conventional than some of the director’s other offerings to date, it nevertheless retains his penchant for incisiveness and thoughtfulness.