Let's be realistic.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The Devil's Path is a sadly overlooked Japanese crime story. It blends several film-making techniques to present a story of crime and (to use an over-used term) redemption.Apparently loosely based on a true story, filmed at times in as a noir crime story, other times not, it presents the details of a series of grisly Yakuza murders and a newspaper reporter desperately attempting to get the story out and bring the real ring-leader to justice. It lays out the competing and sometimes opposing and antagonistic forces the reporter faces while getting the story out - the reporter versus his spouse, the spouse versus her mother-in-law, the reporter versus the newspaper editor, the inner gang rivalries, and finally the reporter and the perpetrator of the crime. These competing relationships are presented in both a narrative and nonlinear fashion to produce a movie you really have to pay attention to and watch a few times to be hit with its full effect. At times it works as a psychological thriller, other times as a garden variety Yakuza movie. It features a character who is truly one of the most chilling psychopaths captured on film, someone who can give Hannibal Lector a run for his money.Well worth watching and not to be missed.