JAPANESE action thriller Hard Days, now streaming on Netflix, follows a police officer who is having one of those off times filled with bad tidings, where things seem to get worse and worse at every turn.
And just when you think things surely can’t go any more pear-shaped, they do so with inimitable style.
Directed by Michihito Fujii, Hard Days follows troubled cop Yuji Kudo (Junichi Okada), who is a little worse for wear after Christmas celebrations with his corrupt colleagues at the precinct.
On his way home, he gets a double whammy of bad news from home and work, which would be more than enough to ruin anyone’s day. But for poor old Yuji, his misadventures are only beginning, as he catapults headlong from the frying pan straight into a tornado of calamity.
After a hit-and-run accident, things spiral out of control quickly and this down at luck detective is dragged into a series of rather confounding conflicts as he tries to backtrack and clean up the astonishing messes he finds himself in.
With internal affairs officer Yazaki, played with painstaking cool by Go Ayano, sniffing around, as well as receiving messages from an anonymous caller claiming to have witnessed his sordid mishaps, Yuji is a ticking time bomb of sins just waiting to be exposed.
A remake of 2014 South Korean thriller A Hard Day, this is a gritty and entertaining romp that is fast-paced from the off. The plot is over the top and sure to raise a few eyebrows but if you go with it and just savour it for the off-the-wall cat and mouse chase it proves to be, you should be kept on the edge of your seat and second-guessing until the final scene.
The cast are top rate, and Hard Days for its assorted flaws, turns out to be one of those rare occasions where a remake wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
(3/5)
