An unsolved murder leads to despair and salvation in ‘The Brightest Sun’

During the 2010s, Tetsuya Nakashima felt like the closest thing Japan had to its own Nicolas Winding Refn, a purveyor of violent, hyperstylized nihilism that somehow managed to command a mainstream audience. With “The Brightest Sun,” his first film in eight years, the boundary-pushing director of “Confessions” (2010) and “The World of Kanako” (2014) offers his boldest provocation yet: hope.

There’s little in the film’s opening scenes to suggest that it will be heading anywhere but into the depths of despair. Hidetoshi Nishijima plays Mitsuo, a hard-drinking private investigator looking into the murder of a former colleague, Yoichi (Jiro Sato). Much to his chagrin, he’s accompanied by Satoko (Hikari Mitsushima), a trainee who’s just as screwed-up as he is.