Japanese love mysteries, in print and on the screen, but foreigners, by and large, don't take to Japanese mystery movies. For decades, Japanese producers were happy to concentrate on the big domestic market for local whodunit films, while making only half-hearted attempts to sell them abroad to largely indifferent buyers. So overseas fans are as yet little acquainted with the many films based on mysteries considered classics here, beginning with Edogawa Rampo's stories about Kogoro Akechi, a detective as famous in Japan as Sherlock Holmes is everywhere.
The Fuji TV network and its partners are trying to change all that, in Asia at least, with "Eiga: Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (The After-Dinner Mysteries)," a film based on a popular Fuji show set on a real-life cruise ship operated by a Hong Kong-based company. Following its Japan release on Aug. 3, the film will open in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Previous acquaintance with the show is not needed to decipher the standalone story, but any expectations that the film, directed by Fuji TV drama vet Masato Hijikata, will live up to its punchy, fast-paced trailer ought to be put aside. Featuring the show's main cast, it's a TV drama episode written large, with the same goofy mugging, clever-clever plot twists and, at the end, shameless tearjerking.