After his father committed suicide, the son returns home to his hometown, and he tries to find out what happened to his father.
The protagonist’s father became a whistleblower after he discovered a weakness with a car part, and it ended up with him taking his own life. If someone threatens people’s livelihood, they become the enemy, especially if many people work for the same company in a small town. So it’s hard to be a whistleblower.
The protagonist works for a man who runs an orphanage, and there he comes in contact with a girl who’s about to start her own life. The owner of the orphanage, who seems like a nice man, also runs a network that steals cars when the night comes. And the protagonist joins his crew while he’s trying to find out more about what happened to his father and the town’s dark secrets.
Day and Night is directed by Michihito Fujii. He’s the one who directed Yakuza and the Family (2020).
I loved this movie. I didn’t have high expectations, but this movie sucked me in with the interesting characters and all the small-town secrets. This is a small and sort of isolated town where you feel that most of the people living there are selfish. The orphanage is the only pure place, but the money that keeps the orphanage running is dirty.
The score is great. The cinematography is beautiful, and the acting is fantastic. The story is interesting, and there are a lot of things going on in the protagonists’ life. I never felt the movie became too long since it has a runtime of around 134 minutes. The pace is perfect, and it’s an interesting transition going from following the protagonist working for the orphanage and turning into a criminal when the night come.
Shin’nosuke Abe is fantastic as the protagonist. I loved all the central actors, but Shin’nosuke Abe is the one who steals the show.
It looks like Day and Night is going to be a sleeper, while overrated movies like Driving My Car (2021) get the chance to shine. But that movie will always be trash if you know your stuff and watch quality movies from Japan. Watch Day and Night, and pretend a movie like Drive My Car doesn’t exist.