Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticOver cigarettes in a Tokyo nightclub, a newbie crime reporter eager to make a mark is speaking to his source.
Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), an American who’s become fluent in Japanese to work as a journalist far from home, uses the language to ask his source Jin Miyamoto (Hideaki Itō) whether the city of Tokyo has officially recorded murder cases at all.
Miyamoto, a corrupt cop, is briefly caught up in all the flashes of distraction the nightclub has to offer — bright lights, music, liquor on order and young women ambiently available — before explaining the situation to this outsider.
He spells it out, in emphatic English, to make his point to the American: “There. Is. No. Murder. In. Japan.” In other words, the Tokyo police of the late 1990s, when our story takes place, will use any excuse to look away from what’s happening.
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