Once a maker of Hollywood-style sci-fi ("Gunhed," 1989) and noir ("Painted Desert," 1993), Masato Harada has become a director of films about fact-based, character-testing group missions, be it police routing radicals from a Karuizawa villa ("The Choice of Hercules," 2002) or samurai fighting the biggest battle in Japanese history ("Sekigahara," 2017).
These films are fast-paced, densely plotted odes to the Japanese organization man (and, peripherally, woman), with everyone from the rank-and-filers to the leaders being dedicated, tough-minded pros. The lazy, paper-shuffling salaryman of comedy (and reality) is nowhere in sight.
Based on Shusuke Shizukui's best-selling novel, Harada's "Killing for the Prosecution" is the latest in this jut-jawed, high-tension line. Its Tokyo public prosecutors and cops are hard-shell types supremely good at what they do (if constantly butting heads while they do it). The best of the best is Takeshi Mogami (Takuya Kimura), a veteran prosecutor who is a hero to his juniors, including the baby-faced, idealistic Keiichiro Okino (Kazunari Ninomiya).