'Don't you understand what is to have a child taken from you? How could you be a policeman and not understand that?"
That's a line from "Rokuyon" ("Six Four") the latest addition to Japan's host of films about kidnapping. "Six Four" is distinctive in the thriller subgenre, however, in that it had a budget to create a feature more than four hours long, which the distributors (Toho Cinema) have decided to break up into two parts. Part 1 opens this weekend, while Part 2 opens on June 11.
Written and directed by Toshihisa Zeze, "Six Four" is a faithful adaptation of novelist Hideo Yokoyama's bestselling mystery, which was dramatized by NHK last year, which is why splitting the narrative into two parts may not be a ploy to keep viewers on tenterhooks for a month.