In American film, hotel murders always seem to occur at dives – places where the probability of contracting some sort of random fatal disease may preclude the necessity of the assassin … it makes you wonder why the hitman even bothers. Tokyo’s Hotel Cortesia is the exact opposite on this spectrum … and yet, the murder rate is surprisingly similar. It’s especially surprising given the murder rate in Japan is fraction of what it is in the US.
No, they don’t have many murders in Japan, but when they do, it’s five-star treatment in the round.
Just hours from a new year countdown, a(nother) murder has taken place at the Hotel Cortesia and a fax (Japan still uses faxes! Good to know) warns that another will occur during the NYE Masquerade Night Party. So you know what this means: Par-tay at the Cortesia! The Tokyo police are back at the noted hotel getting their frequent interloper vouchers stamped for once again bad stuff is goin’ down in a place where even the rats need white ties to go with their tails.
Especially hampered is gruff police detective Kosuke Nitta (Takuya Kimura) who must shelve his dishevel in order to go undercover … again. And much as Nitta learned two years ago how demanding a hotelier’s job, he has to relearn it immediately when committing the crime of welcoming a guest back.
The big subplot in the film involves the over-officious Type A concierge Naomi Yamagishi (Masami Nagasawa) auditioning
for an El Lay promotion. A key theme in the film is that a good concierge never says “no” under any circumstances – so, what, they have the same skill set as a hostage negotiator?—this sets up intrigue in which we get to guess if the woman is actually aiding a killer in her drop-dead efforts to please a customer.
Masquerade Night is slick and stylish, as is the mystery contained therein. The thing is, so was its predecessor, Masquerade Hotel. And if you’re reading this paragraph, odds are close to 100% you’ve either seen both films or neither, in which case it would be ludicrous of me to suggest you watch this one first. That’s just silly. This isn’t Spider-Man, where you can pick and choose mad-lib style among the stories, heroes, directors, love interests and eras of you want to see. Masquerade Night is a film that exists entirely because Masquerade Hotel was a pretty good film, and it took its cues exactly from where it left off.
The Hotel Cortesia is both swank and ritzy
Yet falls shy of being a sanctuary
Customers of devotion
Enjoy the new promotion
Get murdered and you stay the next night free
Not Rated, 129 Minutes
Director: Masayuki Suzuki
Writer: Michitaka Okada
Genre: Travel guide for upscale murderers
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of refined crime
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Hotel owners
