WOW ... . this was a deep and mind blowingly good movie!! It reminded me a little of Blank 13. I thought I was going to watch a bit of a mystery but it turned out to be so much more than the mystery of a dead man's back story. It literally was an existential 'man hunt' ... a hunt for what it is that defines a man ... a person ... a hunt for identity.

This was not apparent to me at first. The movie moved slowly and I wondered why are they going so slow ... hurry up and get to the juicy mystery bits. Then it jumped some years ... and then there were flashbacks ... and I was wondering what the point of it all was ... and then it hit me ... this was not just about "a" man hunt ... but a multiple man hunt and not just for the men but for their identities, both from an external point of view and an internal point of view. The movie then became entirely fascinating for me ... nothing was irrelevant ... the script was so good it allowed a gloriously deep dive into the existential ﾟ:･*･:◝(ᵔ‿ᵔ)◜:*:･ﾟ.

"Identity' ... in one sense it is such a concrete thing and yet in another sense, it is elusive and ever evolving ... before we are even born we are automatically assigned an identity:
▪ identity from genetics of your biological parents
▪ identify from the time of your birth e.g. before/after marriage; the year / month / day
▪ identity from the order of your birth compared to your siblings ... even the order of birth of your parents in the broader family context
▪ identity from the geographical place of birth ... even the place of birth of your ancestors e.g. born in Japan but your great grandparents were Korean ...
▪ identity from race
▪ identify from culture
▪ identity from your gender
▪ identity from social institutions e.g. the school you went to, the religion you have, the occupation you have; the clubs you belong to; the music you listen to; the hobbies you have
▪ identity from your physical body - the 'perfectness' of it or the 'imperfectness' of it; who/what you look like ... I am the splitting image of my father ... you look like a Korean etc
▪ identity from your state of mind - sane / not sane; smart; stupid;
▪ identity from what your parents do/are - son of a murderer, daughter of a prostitute, son of a doctor etc
▪ identity from where you live, what you wear, the food you eat
▪ identity from your experiences - parenthood; singleness; military service etc
▪ the identity that others assign to you - "hurry up and go back to your 'old self'"
▪ the identity that you think you are ... or should be ... or want to be ...

"Identity" ... so abstract and yet it is such a very heavy thing ... a blessing in its inclusiveness and yet also a weapon of separation and destruction ... something innate and yet something thrust upon you without consent ... what choice do you have with it ... how much of it can you mold and how much of it do you just have to accept as is ... can you escape from it and thereby escape to a different way of life, a different way of being ... how many times have we modified our personality throughout our lives without even knowing ... how did we do that ... is it necessarily a bad thing (˙_˙)ゞ.

I loved the scripting ... as well as the symbolic imagery used throughout ... and the clues that were set up right from the beginning. I liked the different perspectives of a person's identity given from the children to the adults, to friends and family of the main characters ... even to that of strangers. It was very nicely done and the actors did it credit. The scripting was so loaded ... so mind blowingly good. For me this movie is definitely rewatchable. As for the score ... I got so consumed with the story line and all the thoughts that that generated in my mind, I don't even remember the score of the movie ... but I gave it a 10 anyway because whatever it was, it did not detract from the story line at all.

The final scene showing Kido's back as he looked at that painting ... profound. A brilliant movie ... I loved it.