Penance

Four girls see how their friend Emili is taken away by a man, after which she is found murdered. Emili’s mother Asako blames the children for the fact that they couldn’t tell the police the identity of the murderer and forces them to do penance. As far as the vindictive mother is concerned, the rest of their lives will be dominated by crime and punishment. Fifteen years later, when the girls have grown up, that is indeed the case. In five episodes, we follow them one by one as they wrestle with their traumatic past. What does their penance look like and what role does Asako play? And who killed poor Emili? Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Tokyo Sonata) made the transition to television with this psychological thriller series. He adapted Minato Kanae’s bestseller Shokuzai (2009) into a series, where he takes plenty of time for character development. He manages to build up the tension to great heights using a mixture of remarkable absurdity and exciting scenes.

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