Based on a book called Shokuzai by Japanese author Kanae Minato, Penance, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa was originally made as a TV mini-series before it was readjusted to work as a long feature film. The series revolves around the murder of a girl named Emili and how it affects her mother, Asako (Kyoko Koizumi), and those around her in the small village where the heinous crime took place. Although there were some witnesses, the crime goes unsolved by the local authorities. The four classmates who found Emili's body swear they can't recall the murderer's identity.

Understandably Asako is very upset over all of this, but it's what she does to cope with this grief that gives the series its backbone. When what would have been her daughter's birthday rolls around, Asako gathers up the four former playmates and tells them in no uncertain terms that if they don't spill it in regards to who killed her daughter, she will get penance from each and every one of them. A decade and a half later Asako tracks down these four girls: Sae (Yu Aoi), Maki (Eiko Koike), Akiko (Sakura Ando), Yuka (Chizuru Murakami), all now young women and each dealing with various issues of their own. Asako, however, has not forgotten her promise and in her own strange way almost literally becomes a black clad angel of vengeance.

As the storyline progresses over the five episodes that make up the entirety of Penance we learn how each of the four school girls grew into women accurately described as troubled. Going into too much detail as to the specifics of their own individual issues would give away a bit too much so we won't go there but they are flawed, just as everyone else on the planet is. They don't always cope with their flaws in the most appropriate ways though. While they may appear to have it together on the surface but as we spend a bit of time with them in each of their respective chapters we learn that things aren't quite as hunky-dory as they first seem. Character traits come into play here that, without wanting to spoil things, tie into Asako's quest in interesting and sometimes fairly surprising ways. The way in which the young women are tied into Asako, by this one event that binds them whether they like it or not, becomes important as Penance moves towards its conclusion.

Penance has its strong points and its weak points, but despite some flaws the good does outweigh the bad here. Working for the mini-series is some very strong acting. Each of the four woman who play those that Asako is after do fine work and manage to give their respective characters enough of their own personality and character quirks that we never have any trouble distinguishing them despite some obvious similarities in the beginning of the storyline. Not surprisingly though, given how things are weighted, Kyoko Koizumi is the actress that really stands out here. As Asako she is occasionally frightening, often quite tragic and always relatable and her work in front of the camera here is pretty believable. The story keeps things very grounded, so some of the credit for that goes to the writing, but Koizumi is very good in the lead and she ably carries the film.

The movie also benefits from the style that its director has essentially made his trademark. Those familiar with Kiyoshi Kurosawa know that he's not a particularly flashy director, at least in the sense that he doesn't rely on a lot of fast cutting or unnecessary camera tricks. He is a director who works very much ‘in camera' and while his style can sometimes be a little cold and sometimes a bit too clinical, here it suits the material. Asako herself has become cold and clinical in her methodology and the pacing of the material and the way in which it is shot and edited reflects this.

Where Penance loses a few points is with its ending, which we won't spoil, doesn't quite give us the payoff that the earlier chapters allude to. As such, sitting through a series/movie of this length might seem a bit arduous to those who want something a bit more visually arresting or action oriented. There's plenty of suspense to be had here, however, and there are enough eerie moments, interesting directorial choices and genuinely terrific performances to definitely make this worth watching if you don't mind the slow burn approach to storytelling Kurosawa employs.

Penance arrives on Blu-ray from Music Box Films in a 1.78.1 widescreen transfer presented in AVC encoded 1080i high definition. This was shot in high definition digitally and as such, the image is clean and print damage, heavy grain and what can't ever be an issue. The image is a little flat looking. There's definitely more detail here than you'd get on DVD, but the colors are a little drab (some of which is due to the color scheme used in the production, this is an intentionally bleak looking production to begin with) and the blacks aren't quite as deep as you could hope they would be. With that said, the image is perfectly stable and free of compression artifacts (thankfully the three hundred minutes of material is spread across two discs). There are a few scenes where contrast runs a little hot but otherwise this looks okay, just not amazing.