Accidental Kidnapper

2010, 111 min., HD Cam, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Hideo Sakaki. With Katsunori Takahashi, Sho Aikawa, Eiichiro Funakoshi.

The best child-kidnapper road movie since Clint Eastwood’s criminally underrated A Perfect World, this film follows the misadventures of down-on-his-luck Hideyoshi Date (played by heartthrob Katsunori Takahashi). At the end of his tether, Date makes the morally questionable decision to kidnap a schoolboy for ransom. It’s a piece of cake at first, as the boy is eager to get away from his nagging mother and overly strict father, and the unlikely duo set off together on a happy-go-lucky journey that’s half kidnapping and half running away from it all. The stakes are raised when the boy’s father, a wealthy yakuza, puts out an all-points bulletin on the pair, and actor/director Hideo Sakaki kicks it up one notch more by casting Sho Aikawa as the crime lord!

Part of Japan Cuts: Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema

TICKETS
$12 / $8 Japan Society members, seniors & students

Buy Tickets Online or please call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Weekends 11 am – 5 pm.