AFI FEST film review: 'Under the Open Sky'

An old and wary career criminal struggles against a society that rejects him for his past, while he resists the temptation of slipping into his old ways in the Japanese drama 'Under the Open Sky' (screening during AFI FEST 2020).

In short: After serving a prison sentence for murder, former Yakuza member Mikami (Kôji Yakusho) struggles to adjust to life after prison. A television producer steps in film a show about his reintegration into society and to help him find the mother who abandoned him as a child.

Mikami is a relic from a bygone era. The skills he picked up in prison aren't exactly in high demand on the job market. The whole of 'Open Sky' hinges on the temptation for Mikami to pick up where he left off before prison. Even after paying his debt to society, Mikami finds himself marginalized in society - as if he’s still paying a penance even after completing his prison sentence. As a criminal who spent most of his life behind bars, he faces bureaucratic road block after road block just to earn enough to make a living. His neighbors look down on him with suspicion. And even in his older age, he still carries himself with the confidence of a man once known as a yakuza brawler. The world around him practically does all it can to all but force an increasingly frustrated Mikami to take the easy way out and rejoin the criminal underworld.

'Open Sky' has an earnest, pragmatic tone in its take rehabilitation and redemption. It lacks the somber, hopeless tone one would expect from the typical social commentary drama - yet it avoids the temptation to become cloying. The film has a surprising, melancholic sweetness that isn't overly saccharine or contrived. Mikami is a good man who spent his life either making poor decisions or dealing with the consequences of his choices. The film finds Mikami as an older man just trying to restart his life - but just as the film establishes him as a nice older man, 'Open Sky' gives flashes of the hot-tempered nature that got Mikami into so much trouble. Although Mikami cannot change the world around him, 'Open Sky' focuses on a once-hardened criminal who must reform himself to fit back into society -- even if it goes against his very nature.

Final verdict: 'Open Sky' makes a compelling and heartfelt case for rehabilitation rather than ostracization, centered by a touching portrait of a man just trying to find his place in the world.

Score: 4/5

'Under the Open Sky' screens at AFI FEST. This Japanese drama is unrated and brief language and has a running time of 103 minutes.