"I Just Didn't Do It," a new documentary by Masayuki Suo, the director of "Shall We Dance?", has also raised popular awareness of coerced confessions. The movie - based on the real-life story of a young man who was falsely accused of groping a teenage girl on the Tokyo subway and imprisoned for 14 months - portrays how the authorities extract confessions, whether the accused are guilty or not. "Traditionally, in Japan, confessions have been known as the king of evidence," said Kenzo Akiyama, a lawyer who is a former judge and has written critically of the criminal justice system. "Especially if it's a big case, even if the accused hasn't done anything, the authorities will seek a confession through psychological torture."