So this is Christmas. With Hollywood spectacles in short supply at Japanese cinemas this holiday season, Takafumi Hatano’s “Silent Tokyo” offers a tolerable alternative, like having a KFC bucket in place of a turkey dinner.
It’s a snappy and preposterous thriller that imagines what would happen if a terrorist attack took place in Japan’s capital on Christmas Eve. Though the end result never threatens to surpass the first two “Die Hard” films as the Yuletide movie of choice for action-loving misanthropes, it makes a welcome break from the usual rom-coms.
On Dec. 24 in a coronavirus-free Tokyo, the festive atmosphere is barely disturbed by a non-fatal explosion in a shopping mall. Grizzled detective Shinobu Seta (Hidetoshi Nishijima) surmises that it’s a dry run for something bigger, and sure enough, a video message arrives from the purported bomber, declaring that a deadlier device will go off that evening in the heart of Shibuya.