Mysteries are hot in the Japanese movie business now, but they have long been hard sells abroad. This may seem strange, since the mystery genre in Japan, from novels to films, has been heavily influenced by foreign models — starting with the genre's father, Edgar Allen Poe.
But if contemporary Hollywood mysteries tend to be on the gritty side, such as the film adaptations of Elmore Leonard's oeuvre, their Japanese counterparts usually tell stories that are elaborate puzzles, ending with lengthy explanations of who did what how. In other words, they own more to Agatha Christie, the queen of the brain-teaser mystery, than Raymond Chandler, the once and future king of the hard-boiled whodunit.
Based on a best-selling novel by Keigo Higashino, Yoshihiro Fukagawa's "Byakuyako (Into the White Night)" is a Japanese mystery movie with a difference: Two of its principals are only children when the murder that sets the plot in motion occurs — one, the daughter of the prime suspect, the other, the son of the victim.