It all starts with a murder: A woman is found dead in the snow on a
field near the rural village Matsugane. However, when cop Kotaro (Hirofumi
Arai) starts to investigate, he finds out that the woman, Hiyuki, isn't
actually dead (and recovers rather quickly in fact), and she wasn't the
victim of a murder attempt but merely of a hit-and-run accident -
which makes Kotaro finish his investigations pretty soon and without a
solution.
What Kotaro doesn't know though is that his own slacker twin brother
Hikaru (Takashi Yamanaka) was the driver in the hit-and-run, and Kotaro
doesn't even care to put two and two together to find that out ...
unfortunately, especially for Hiraku, because Hiyuki and her boyfriend
Yuji (Yuichi Kimura) are a couple of gangsters, and tehy now blackmail
Hiraku into submission, forcing him to give them abode in his
grandfather's empty house and to dive for the loot of a heist
(presumably), a bag full of gold bars and a severed head, in the frozen
lake - because the gold was actually what the couple came to Matsugane
for.
With millions worth of gold in their hands, Yuji and Hiyuki want to
leave Matsugane, but when they want to sell it to the local bank,
they're in for a shock, because the bank isn't buying without them having
a certificate of sale. So they return to Hikaru's place and treat him even
worse then before.
Meanwhile Kotaro's life isn't going much better: His engagement to
Setsuko is at the point of breaking up, his father has impregnated a local
nympho (Tamae Ando) - though it's in fact not clear if Kotaro hasn't
knocked her up himself -, the mice at the precinct are driving him bonkers
(even if nobody but him seems to be hearing them), and then he is suddenly
confronted with his twin brother's problems as well and even has to hush
them up ...
It all ends with Kotaro trying to poison Matsugane's water supply to
wipe out all scum for good and Hiraku finally standing up to Yuji - and
almost killing him in the process.
It's spring: Nothing much has changed, after some treatment Kotaro
returns to his job as cop, Hikaru is now working regularly at the family
ranch, and Hiyuki and Yuji are still living in his house, now making their
gold into souvenirs to sell at a local souvenir shop - well under their
worth ...
The Matsugane Potshot Affair is a likeable little film that
tells its story with just the right amount of irony to make it
entertaining but keep it from becoming ridiculous, that uses a subtle
approach to its absurd and sometimes bizarre details and that's filmed in
an unpretentious yet engaging manner with a cast full of flawed yet
likeable characters. That all said though, the film falls short of being a
masterpiece, mainly because it presents the audience with a few too many
subplots (which I have not all mentioned in my synopsis) which are not all
properly integrated into the film and which make it a bit hard to follow
the main storyline.
However, that does not make the film bad, just a bit flawed, yet still
good entertainment.
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