This review may contain spoilers
What an enjoyable movie! I really missed seeing the trio together after so long and it was certainly a delight to find out that Higashino Keigo-san did release a new novel after Midsummer's equation. (Though I still wished publishers also pick up translating the other earlier novels, given how popular the series was. )Fukuyama Masaharu was still great as Professor Yukawa, bringing out the many charms of an eccentric physics professor who also had a taste in mystery deduction. It was also great to see Shibasaki Kou back as Utsumi, bringing back the old Yukawa-Utsumi dynamics that everyone loved so dearly. And with Kitamura Kazuki reprising his role as Kusanagi, the ultimate trio is complete! Even more, I really appreciate this movie due to the fact that this is the first live-action adaptation of the novel where both Kusanagi and Utsumi were present in the original novel (ie most of the drama plot for Utsumi before was originally written for Kusanagi while plots that include Utsumi in - after Higashino-san start writing her in due to drama's popularity - end up being pushed to Kishitani)
But of course, due to some changes in the drama plot aka having Utsumi being sent away for training and slotting in Kishitani as her replacement as well as a few of Kusanagi's key scenes be given to Utsumi, the writing would be affected to reflect that but the overall vibe of the movie was still okay.
As usual, Kusanagi and Utsumi were dealing with yet another complicated case and ended up needing the help of our reluctant physics professor who always tends to find himself in the middle of a case. And this time, Kusanagi had to confront an old case that once traumatised him so much.
I really love the trio's dynamics, and I especially love how Utsumi grew to become this bridge that's connecting Yukawa and Kusanagi and mediated their relationship; as Yukawa and Kusanagi's friendship grew even more strained due to the case.
The case was interesting as well as it featured a conflict faced by the police when they couldn't prosecute the suspect that they were sure to be guilty yet unable to prove the crime as the suspect kept their silence despite mounting evidence stacked against them. It also presents a dilemma when they have to investigate the victims of the crime who may have committed murder out of revenge due to the failure of the police to punish a criminal using the law.
The movie compiled a montage at the end in the credits featuring most of the trio's past scenes in drama and movies which I find to be very sweet.
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