Japanese film “Baka’s Identity” is a grim but engaging crime drama about three different lads struggling in their criminal underworld in one way or another. As smoothly moving from one perspective from another one along its non-linear narrative, the movie gradually reveals more of how harsh and ruthless their criminal underworld can be, and we come to understand and care about them more than before.

The story, which consists of three acts, initially focuses on how Takuya Matsumoto (Takumi Kitamura) and Mamoru (Yuta Hayashi) operate in the criminal underworld in Tokyo. Working under some big criminal organization, they often lure men with their fake female online identities. With some help from their young female associate, they later trick these unfortunate targets into selling their identity papers, which will then be resold at a much higher price to whoever seeking a new identity for a new life.

So far, things have been fairly good for both Takuya and Mamoru, but we begin to sense trouble when they meet their direct boss at one point. When Takuya happens to be absent for a while, their direct boss instructs Mamoru not to contact Takuya at any chance on the next day, but he does not tell Mamoru the reason for that at all. Though quite baffled about this odd instruction, Mamoru subsequently comes to witness something suspicious from Takuya, but he still does not tell anything – even to Kenshi Kajitani (Go Ayano), another member of the criminal organization who has been like a big brother to both Mamoru and Takuya.

Needless to say, the situation soon becomes quite dangerous for both Takuya and Mamoru, but then the screenplay by Kosuke Mukai, which is based on the novel by Jun Nishio, steps back and then fleshes out the relationships among its three main characters more. We see how Takuya generously took Mamoru under his wing not long after their accidental first encounter, and this touchingly resonates with how much Kenshi comes to care about Takuya more later in the story. At one point, Kenshi must make a choice as getting involved with Takuya more than he wanted at first, and their circumstance certainly becomes all the trickier as a consequence.

While thankfully sticking to its calm, restrained attitude as before, the movie unnerves us with several chilling moments of brutal violence. Although initially looking pretty jolly on the surface, Takuya and Mamoru’s direct boss is not certainly a nice man at all, and neither is a dude at the top of their criminal organization. Besides that illegal trading of identity papers, their criminal organization turns out to be involved with several other nasty criminal businesses, and the casual attitude of these two very unpleasant figures to their deplorable criminal activities will chill or disgust you at times.

While quite uncompromising in the depiction of the gloomy despair and horror surrounding its main characters, the movie still holds our attention as an effective crime noir thriller. It is gradually revealed that Takuya gets himself involved in a very risky criminal scheme involved with a lot of dirty money to steal, and the movie trusts us enough to let us gather what is going on around Takuya and several other main characters. Even when it eventually arrives at the expected finale, the movie does not hurry itself at all, and it manages to pull out a little bit of hope and optimism even though many things remain quite uncertain for its three main characters.

The three main cast members of the film are solid as the human centers of the story. Right from the beginning, Takumi Kitamura and Yuta Hayashi click well with each other as two lads who have depended on each other a lot as close friends and colleagues, and Kitamura is particularly good when Takuya must not hint or reveal anything to Mamoru at all for Mamoru’s safety. As another important part of the story, Go Ayano is convincing as a man who turns out to have more compassion and conscience than his meek and shabby appearance suggests, and we do not need any explanation at all when his character decides to take a lot of risk for himself as well as Takuya.

In case of several substantial supporting performers in the film, their characters are rather broad on the whole, but they are well-cast in their respective roles at least. Kazuya Tanabe and Goichi Mine are as menacing and despicable as expected from their villainous characters, and they surely bring extra tension whenever their characters appear on the screen. Although their supporting roles are mostly under-developed, Mizuki Yamashita and Yuma Yamoto hold each own small spot well around the fringe of the story, and they also contribute a bit of sensitivity to the movie.

In conclusion, “Baka’s Identity”, which was released as “Who Is a Fool?” in South Korea on last Wednesday (“Baka” is a rather strong Japanese pejorative meaning “Fool”, by the way), did a fairly good job of mixing familiar genre elements into its dark social drama under the competent direction of director Koto Nagata, who previously directed “Little DJ” (2007). When I walked into the screening room during this afternoon, I did not have much knowledge or expectation on what or how it is about, so the movie surprised me as engaging and then touching me more than expected, and now I recommend you to give it a chance someday.