Soredemo boku wa yattenai (2006)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Masayuki Suo

Writer:

Masayuki Suo (writer)

Release Date:

20 January 2007 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A young man is falsely accused of molesting a high-school girl on a train. He is arrested and charged, and goes through endless court sessions, all the while insisting that he is innocent. |

Awards:

19 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Ryo Kase	...	Teppei Kaneko
Asaka Seto	...	Riko Sudo, Lawyer
Kohji Yamamoto	...	Tatsuo Saito
Masako Motai	...	Toyoko kaneko
Kôji Yakusho	...	Masayoshi Arakawa, Lawyer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hirotaro Honda	...	Hideo Mitsui
Yosuke Ishii	...	Keizo Hirayama
Toshiyuki Kitami	...	Takashi Miyamoto
Fumiyo Kohinata	...	Shogo Muroyama
Toru Masuoka	...	Seiichiro Tamura
Ken Mitsuishi	...	Mitsuru Sada
Ryôsuke Ohtani
Toshinori Omi
Nao Omori	...	Koji Yamada
Shinya Owada	...	Toshio Hiroyasu
Misa Shimizu
Daikichi Sugawara
Kosuke Suzuki
Ranran Suzuki	...	Yoko Doi
Miako Tadano
Hiromasa Taguchi
Choei Takahashi	...	Masayoshi Arakawa
Naoto Takenaka
Tetsushi Tanaka	...	Akira Ahamada
Yu Tokui	...	Seiji Nishimura
Miyu Yagyu	...	Toshiko Furukawa
Kenichi Yajima
Hiroshi Yamamoto	...	Satoshi Kitao

Also Known As:

Even So, I Didn't Do It (USA) (literal English title)
I Just Didn't Do It (International: English title)

Runtime:

Japan:143 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Hong Kong:IIA

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Altamira Pictures Inc.

Trivia:

Japan's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008).

One perspective on the Japanese justice system

The film follows the procedures of an unfortunate man as he is arrested, indicted, and tried for groping, a criminal offense. Throughout, the audience is confronted with moral dilemmas, questions on the most basic, most fundamental principles of the justice system and court procedure. Of course, the basic tenet is "innocent until proved guilty," but how does a court truly guarantee such? How does a justice system work efficiently without error? How should the justice system correct itself when there is a mistake? And how should the defendant act when he is wrongly accused? These questions are relevant to any nation, not just Japan.

Despite all the considerations of a highly developed democratic system, the main character, Teppei, still finds himself in the most unfortunate situation of being indicted for a crime he did not commit. Japan has checks and balances different from the United States or other western nations. Most innocent people are freed in the Kensatsu (something similar to the prosecutor) and are never indicted. In a sense, there is a court involving investigation, before the actual court. That a defendant, before entering a court room, has already been found guilty in two separate investigations renders the court a place to merely decide what the punishment should be. This is the reality of 99.9% guilty rate (which includes those who plead guilty). Teppei finds himself in the unlucky situation where he actually gets indicted despite being innocent.

After seeing this movie, many people, especially non-Japanese, will get the wrong impression of the Japanese justice system, which is a lot more fair than this film gives credit to. Regardless, the film presents a very valuable and justified perspective of the way criminal cases are handled in Japan and forces us to contemplate the concept of courts regardless of nation.