On the flight from Fukuoka to Singapore, I was really, really looking forward to watching Maleficient. Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten it yet, so I ended up watching a couple of movies that I didn’t even know about. One of them was 白雪姫殺人事件 (Shirayuki hime satsujin jiken – Snow White Murder Case).

Screenshot from the official site

On one level, this movie is about a murder case. A beautiful OL (Office Lady) named Noriko Miki was discovered burnt in a national park. A temp worker at a news agency hears from a friend, who works as the same pharmaceutical company as the deceased, and he realises that if he uncovers who the murderer is before the cops, he’d have the scoop of the year. As he digs into the case, suspicion falls on a co-worker named Miki Shirano. And the story follows him as he interviews workers in that pharmaceutical company as well as people from the suspect’s hometown.

On another level, this movie is about social media and the court of public opinion. The television employee makes a point of updating his twitter as he discovers new things, and the reactions of the people on twitter are also shown. The opinions of the masses change with each development, and I found this aspect of the film to be more fascinating than the murder mystery.

And, unexpectedly, this film brought tears to my eyes. I found the last part of the film to be really moving, as the truth is revealed and its impact on the various characters seen. The ending (I think one scene before the final scene), which involved Miki Shirano and a childhood friend Yuko Tanimura had me tearing up.

Oh, and I found something really strange. As the film progressed, I found that Miki Shirano looked prettier and prettier. She started off as a really unattractive person (which people repeatedly mentioned), but at the end of the film, she was really pretty. Odd because this has only happened once, with the Liar Game movie. I found the lead of that movie pretty at first, but plain by the end.

I highly recommend this movie if you get a chance to watch it. It’s really interesting, and surprisingly moving.

Film trailer: