"Furuhata Ninzaburô" is at its most imaginative and suspenseful when it is set in confined spaces where Furuhata and his criminal prey are stuck together, forced to engage in a tense battle of wits without a chance of escape. An express train then sounds like the ideal location and it is by and large well used in "Murder Express", an entertaining if unremarkable episode.
A lot of the story is dedicated to the commonplace inconveniences of train travel. Furuhata is introduced going from one buffet car to the next in search of a bento box, Shintaro is stuck in third class next to a toothless old lady ferociously cleaning her dentures, and one of the key clues in the mystery turns out to be a seat reclining onto a witness' knees. With his typical, well-observed humour, Kôki Mitani gets a lot of mileage out of these scenes and they form the heart of the story.
The mystery is a little less compelling due to the killer's plan which seems fairly short-sighted. Figuring out the culprit is no real challenge for Furuhata but catching him out might be because Dr Nakagawa, as played by Takeshi Kaga, is one of Furuhata's more cool-headed and wily suspects. He has no qualms in calling Furuhata out for suspecting him and pointing out that he has no real evidence. The interplay between the two is the high point of the episode.
As directed by Hidetomo Matsuda, "Murder Express" is a pacy and claustrophobic tale and yet some of Mamoru Hoshi's more over-the-top stylistic choices would have been welcome to break up the train set's grey monotony.
A lot of the story is dedicated to the commonplace inconveniences of train travel. Furuhata is introduced going from one buffet car to the next in search of a bento box, Shintaro is stuck in third class next to a toothless old lady ferociously cleaning her dentures, and one of the key clues in the mystery turns out to be a seat reclining onto a witness' knees. With his typical, well-observed humour, Kôki Mitani gets a lot of mileage out of these scenes and they form the heart of the story.
The mystery is a little less compelling due to the killer's plan which seems fairly short-sighted. Figuring out the culprit is no real challenge for Furuhata but catching him out might be because Dr Nakagawa, as played by Takeshi Kaga, is one of Furuhata's more cool-headed and wily suspects. He has no qualms in calling Furuhata out for suspecting him and pointing out that he has no real evidence. The interplay between the two is the high point of the episode.
As directed by Hidetomo Matsuda, "Murder Express" is a pacy and claustrophobic tale and yet some of Mamoru Hoshi's more over-the-top stylistic choices would have been welcome to break up the train set's grey monotony.
