A Ghost of a Chance

Director: Koki Mitani
Starring: Eri Fukatsu, Toshiyuki Nishida, Hiroshi Abe
Rating:
Japanese title: Sutekina Kanashibari

Hapless lawyer Emi (Eri Fukatsu) is tasked with defending a murder suspect with a bizarre alibi: he claims that he was being sat on by the ghost of a vanquished samurai at the time the crime took place. Rather than give up, she tracks down the spirit in question (Toshiyuki Nishida) and enlists his help – too bad that only a handful of people can actually see him.

Writer/director Koki Mitani extracts ample laughs from this flimsily conceived premise in A Ghost of a Chance, which later expands to incorporate an ineffectual Shinto exorcist and an inspector from the spirit world with a taste for Frank Capra films (Fumiyo Kohinata). The veteran playwright excels at concocting farcical set pieces that turn their staginess to their advantage, and some of the courtroom scenes in particular are gloriously funny. Yet for all the sparkle of the dialogue, the film as a whole feels overlong and lazily plotted, with a final reel revelation that might make you wonder what the point of the previous two hours was.

All the same, it's an entertaining watch. A gifted comic actress, Fukuda proves one of the strongest points, though she's ably – if hammily – supported by Nishida, Hiroshi Abe, Tadanobu Asano, Kiichi Nakai and a host of others. I suspect that some people might find the closing scene's determined bid for the tear ducts downright manipulative, but it had me sobbing away quite happily.

A Ghost of a Chance opens nationwide on October 29

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