By any right way of thinking Negotiator Mashita Masayoshi should be a very bad film. Horrible, even. Films based on television shows are seldom very good. Take that basic rule and combine it with the law of diminishing returns on sequels and you have a recipe for something truly odious. NMM is, after all, the fourth film to be spun out of the popular Bayside Shakedown television series but rather than showing signs of imminent collapse the film franchise continues to be a box office juggernaut in its native Japan. However while the first two films in the series – direct translations of the television show to the big screen, which I have unfortunately not yet seen – both exported well and the first of the spin off films apparently stands quite well on its own - Peter Martin's review here - my hunch is that Negotiator may prove a touch culturally specific to really resonate outside of Japan.
Mashita Masayoshi is the first police negotiator in Tokyo, a position that has drawn him much media attention and much scorn from his fellow police officers who don’t consider his expertise manly enough to be real police work. He is treated with scorn by his fellow officers and even his subordinates are convinced that their unit will not last long before being disbanded. Mashita is packing up to meet his girlfriend for a date on Christmas Eve when disaster strikes on three fronts. A prototype subway train is stolen from the work yard and runs rampant on the Tokyo subway lines. As the authorities are realizing that something is wrong the police discover that a hacker has worked his way deep into their computer system, planting challenges for Mashita to stop his train heist while also making not so veiled bomb threats. Moments later a small bomb detonates in a public park to prove that the mysterious train hijacker means business and Mashita is rushed to the subway control center where the transit staff treat him with every bit as much scorn as his fellow policemen. He must now earn the respect of his peers while stopping a wheeled metal apocalypse from striking the city.
And here’s where the cultural differences strike. A terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway sells itself in Japan. We’re talking instant tension, on a grand scale. In the post Aum world, the post sarin gas attack world, building a film around a Tokyo subway terrorist attack is the rough Japanese equivalent of setting an American film in a plane about to be flown into a very tall, heavily populated building. That particular scenario has a deep, natural resonance for the Japanese that doesn’t need to be sold to its native audience and so the film makers generally don’t. They simply tell you what’s happening and then settle into the characters, which will work fine with a Japanese audience while leaving others grasping to find the tension that the characters feel. In Japan the audience will supply the energy that drives the film themselves while viewers elsewhere may be left wondering why everybody’s so bothered about a few late trains.
So the film may not entirely work as a cop thriller outside Japan but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work on other levels. Read up on the world of Bayside Shakedown it quickly becomes clear that while fans love the police procedural part of the show what really sets it apart are the character quirks, and while I definitely felt that knowing the world and the characters better would have made the film more enjoyable there is no denying that the film is stocked with memorable characters played compellingly close to the edge of camp. Mashita himself is neurotically insecure, meekly accepting abuse as though he deserves it, a most peculiar trait in a man paid to take control of situations. He is met by the dour transit master control officer, the ridiculously perky transit PR man, and – best of all – veteran character actor Susumu Terajima in a scene chewing performance as a blustering detective. Characters are played for goofy energy rather than serious drama and while they sometimes teeter close to the edge of cliché they never quite tip over.
The film betrays its television origins in the shooting style and emphasis on talk over action – despite a premise that reads very much like a Die Hard movie this is worlds away from an American action film – but it has a unique charm that carries it a long way. It is not without its flaws and will likely be appreciated far more by those already familiar with the Bayside Shakedown universe than those fresh to it but it is certainly strong enough to spur this viewer towards the first films.