Movie: Confessions of A Dog (2010)

Confessions of a Dog (2010) is a fictional story of police corruption in Japan but with details from actual reported incidents. Director Gen Takahashi stresses that 99% of the events in this movie are true. This movie was completed in 2005, but it was only released in Japan late 2010.

Synopsis from here: Takeda (Shun Sugata), a big burly bear of a man, gently extricates the girl from his partner's machinations and because of that is brought to the attention of police captain Mie (Gen Idemitsu). Impressed by Takeda's loyalty to the force Mie offers him the chance to become a full-fledged detective, a position he takes on with gusto.

The people around Takeda, most specifically his wife see that the captain's intentions aren't entirely altruistic. During a hostage situation, the captain instructs Takeda and another officer to use drugs to lure the captor away from the woman he's holding at knife point. It works, but it's clearer an illegal move, one of many that will take place throughout the film and one captured on film by freelance journalist Kusama (Junichi Kawamoto) and news photographer Ricky (Kunihiko Ida). These few photographs will end up being the undoing for the police force.

Director Gen Takahashi takes his time setting up Takeda (over an hour of "Confessions of a Dog's" 3-hour and 15-minute mammoth running time) as a good man whose loyalty to his bosses warps him into a drug-dealing, money-laundering adulterer. Most filmmakers wouldn't take the time to create a character so meticulously, but Takahashi's care in doing so makes Takeda's fall from grace all that much more heartbreaking. Once Kusama takes of the kid gloves and begins to reveal the rape, extortion, theft, paybacks and intimidation tactics used by the police, we know that Takeda is living on borrowed time.

This movie is eerily successful in delivering its message to the audience. Shun Sugata (as the main character Takeda) has such a powerfully engaging and realistic screen presence that the 3+ hour running time is not felt as a burden at all. One might feel uncomfortable while watching such a powerfully played epic movie that highlights issues most countries' police force would not want the public to be aware of.

Here's the movie trailer: