Synopsis : Gamagori Futaro’s life has not been an easy one. He was born to a family of little means where he was constantly bullied for being poor and not having even the money to pay for meals at school. Young Futaro’s only consolation was his loving mother who, though frail and ailing, scrimped and saved every cent she could in order to provide for her only son. Their simple lives were however thrown asunder when Futaro’s father Kenzo shows up at the house one day and through violence, forcibly relieves the pair of whatever little cash and valuables that they have, leaving in his wake a physically and emotionally scarred Futaro. The boy is completely pushed over the edge when his mother dies due to their inability to pay for treatment and in a moment of insanity arising from the loss, brutally bludgeons to death one Ogino Hiroshi in order to take possession of the man’s wallet before disappearing into the dark, rainy night.

The years pass as they tend to and Futaro grows to be a sullen, quiet young man with a single, burning ambition: money. He works hard all day as a labourer at the Mikuni Shipyard and spends his nights admiring the neat stacks cash which he has stashed under the tatami mat in his ramshackle excuse of a home. Futaro’s frugal and miserly ways do not go unnoticed and in a single night, Futaro loses his life’s savings when he is robbed by his vindictive co-workers who have decided to help themselves to the money that he had painstakingly amassed. The act further fuels Futaro’s conviction that money is the one thing that matters and when a chance meeting earns him the acquaintance of Mikuni Midori, Futaro embarks on a self-destructive quest to appropriate the Mikuni family fortune.

Review : I actually sat on this write-up for the longest of times as this is one of those doramas that one has so much to talk about but simply cannot find a place to start. The premise of the dorama is actually quite common of this genre. The difference between this and most other money-grubbing dramas of the genre is that the main protagonist’s quest for money was not to gain happiness but borne out of a very base desire to simply possess it. The dorama is hard to watch only because it is painful to see how hardened Futaro had become. An example of this can be seen through Futaro’s treatment of the Nonomura family.

One of the rare instances in the dorama when Futaro exhibited a hint of humanity was when he visited the eatery run by the Nonomuras and by chance had a dish which reminded him very much of something that his mother had cooked. He also witnesses first-hand, through his trips to visiting the Nonomuras at their eatery, that it was possible for people with little money to be happy. All this goes out of the window though when he purposefully sets about destroying the happiness enjoyed by the Nonomuras by planting dissent within them over money thus proving to himself once again that money is the do-all and end-all of all things and the huge scar over his left eye serves as a constant reminder to him as to how important the possession of money is.

Matsuyama Kenichi is, in my opinion, an excellent character actor and one of the best young actors that Japan has today. Watching ‘Zeni Geba’ further seals this as he manages to fully bring out the emotional and psychological mess that is Gamagori Futaro. The strength in which MatsuKen brought the character to life was all the more apparent since Futaro is the central character, but his character was so strong that everybody else in the story got sidelined. Which is why I suppose the rest of the cast, though competent in their roles, did not manage to cull as much connection nor emotion from me.

Mimura’s character of Mikuni Midori, though a major one since she was the one who brought Futaro into the family and ended up also being the one to call on his conscience to end all the wrongs that he had done, failed to make a very big impression. Miyagawa Daisuke’s role of the policeman that had been on Futaro’s tail since he murdered his brother in cold blood all those years ago was worse since his character felt somewhat flat and bordered on redundant at times. His character of Ogino Satoshi really pales terribly in comparison to the detective character in ‘Byakuyakou’, for example, which had a similar purpose but benefited from a stronger presence throughout the series. I did not even manage to care beyond the duration of the episode itself when Futaro’s wife Mikuni Akane (played by Kinami Haruka) killed herself in an attempt of redemption on his behalf as her character was too shallow for me to connect with in the first place to even warrant my mourning her loss.

All in all, while I do think that the storyline had much promise, I guess with the way the characters were played out, it was probably expected that the presentation of the story would fall somewhat over on the bland side of things. With the potential that the story had and a cast that was fairly well fitted for their roles, it was a very big shame that the whole thing ended up coming across a lot less forceful that it could have been.

My rating for this? 2.7/5

Anyway, some quick notes which I just had to write down in relation to some old classics which came into mind whilst viewing:

1. ‘Love Makes Me Strong’
One would have to be quite blind to not notice that signboard but yes, that extremely obvious piece of signage is very much in the style of the ‘True Love Never Runs Smooth’ one that appeared in the old-school classic ‘Love Generation’. Even the two lead female characters are named Riko but that is just a coincidence and of no significant importance. What is important is that I won’t be the least bit surprised if ‘Love Makes Me Strong’ ends up being one of the main themes to the entire dorama just like how ‘True Love Never Runs Smooth’  was of such great significance in ‘Love Generation’. Naoki is emotionally weak whilst Riko lacks confidence and they each fill what the other lacks. One just hopes that this Riko character will not end up as annoying as the Riko character in ‘Love Generation’ who, by the time episode 10 came around, was in serious need of some good, well-timed bitch-slapping.

2.  “ちゃんとやりなさいよ！ばか！“
This comes in episode 2, but that small bit right at the end of the entire episode 2 preview was enough to remind me of Fukada Kyoko yelling out to Domoto Tsuyoshi whilst he was in the boxing ring all those years ago in ‘To Heart’, spurring him on to give it his literal best shot. If this is not indication that the relationship between Naoki and Riko are going to go the same way as Yuji and Toko in ‘To Heart’, albeit sans the somewhat disturbing Toko-style stalking, I don’t know what is. In any case, it is a given that henceforth, Naoki’s going to pull up his socks not because of his great pretender of a girlfriend but because of the open-faced Riko.

Here’s to hoping that they don’t wait till the very last episode before letting Naoki whip greasy-headed Yoyogi Ren’s skinny arse. Cheers!

Observe this and this, both courtesy of Popseoul. These are just the latest links in the chain. In short, the cast have been, and apparently still are, playing musical chairs with taking turns at trips to the hospital.

For all the glitter and polish that comes with the premise of the drama that is ‘Hana Yori Dango’, the Korean version is not the best there is. This opinion I partly owe to the very vivid recollection of Koo Hye Sun’s hair length that was miraculously changing from scene to scene in the 15 minutes or so that she and the rest of F4 were at the airport to see Jihoo off in pursuit of his lady love. Being anal retentive by nature, I was absolutely appalled at that because it spoke volumes of the shoddy planning when filming. But let us leave this as is for now.

So why is it that I say that the Korean version of ‘Boys Over Flowers’ is not the best? To put it simply, it is the production values (or gross lack thereof) there is spurring me to come to such a conclusion.

Whilst I do think and can tell that great thought and effort was expended into bringing the drama to fruition, I cannot help but take offense to the way that work on the production was carried out. It is common for filming to be done concurrently while a drama is being aired. Almost every production company in almost any given jurisdiction does it. Fact of life. And I can understand the practicality behind it since it means that if there is anything garnering negative reactions from the target audience, tweaks and adjustments can be made accordingly to adapt to the feedback received. But. Does this concurrent filming have to be done so ‘currently’ that you constantly find yourself finishing scenes mere hours before that they are supposed to be aired? What kind of a top-notch quality  production does one expect to put together when the cast is running in and out of the hospital from exhaustion  and/or injuries  causing them all to look like something that the dog pooped on several times over, and everybody is constantly battling against the clock to put together something to air?

Granted that unexpected things happened such as that of the cast members’ traffic accidents so those would have thrown spanners into the works. But it still does not justify nor explain as to why things were constantly so jammed together that there was absolutely zero space to breathe. When Koo Hye Sun injured herself the airing of the drama was delayed to give her time to recover enough for work again. But in all seriousness, this should not be the case at all. I watch a lot of dramas and I have honestly not encountered a drama that was stalled in airing because of any other reasons other than scheduling clashes with major sporting or news events. This drama is the first and I am of the honest opinion that this should not be happening because if anything, work should have been completed sufficiently ahead of things such that there will be space for contingencies. Let me make it clear that I am not begrudging Koo Hye Sun of her time to recover. She deserves to. Totally! But what I do not and cannot understand is why things were being done so last-minute such that when Koo Hye Sun could not work, the whole project had to stall?

And why does the injured Koo Hye Sun have to suffer with the burden of ‘resting’ while knowing that the whole drama is now delayed in airing because of her? Can the poor dear really rest? I know that if I were in her shoes, I would be sitting at home trying to coax my face to mend as fast as it possibly can because my heart would be feeling absolutely horrible that everything is stalled because of me; that my fellow cast members had to go on some impromptu talk-show that people came up with to fill the timeslot just because I could not complete the work that had to be done for everything to continue as it was supposed to. What nonsense is that? That is NOT rest!

Speaking of suffering cast members, immediately prior to starting work on ‘Boys Over Flowers’, Kim Hyun Joong had been taking part in ‘We Got Married’. We all know that. But look at Hyun Joong as he was then and Hyun Joong as he is now. You do not even have to go too far. Just look at him as he was in say… Episode 30 of ‘WGM’. Even 38 if you will. And look at him now. It is all there in the face, plain to see.

Unfortunately, I am unable to use anybody else in the ‘Boys Over Flowers’ cast as examples because I do not follow the K-entertainment circle all that closely for me to do comparisons for everybody. But I watched ‘We Got Married’ with Hyun Joong in it and I also watched ‘Boys Over Flowers’ and this is my observation. This is what I see. I see a Hyun Joong that is now a mere shadow of what he used to be. His biggest selling point for me, other than his being 4D, was his smile, but eyebags, dark rings and weight loss aside, his smile is no longer lighting his face up the way that it used to. It barely reaches his eyes anymore. It is just his facial muscles doing reflex work. And he is so haggard, no amount of makeup that they ply on his mein can cover it. The bloke looks like he has aged 10 years over the last 4 months! How can anyone have the heart to work a person till they are looking like that? It is just unacceptable!

Sure. People like the drama. Television ratings cannot lie and neither can the burgeoning waves of popularity that is washing over almost every member of the cast. But like I have said elsewhere before, the story that is ‘Hana Yori Dango’ is, in itself, a ‘sure-sell’ point. It is almost impossible to go wrong with it, unless you are talking about the very first Japanese adaptation done in 1995 which was, imo, an absolute train wreck simply because it is not humanly possible to squeeze the essence of ‘Hanadan’ into a meagre 78 minutes worth of tape. That said, my whole point is that given the project at hand, the production team was already working onto a guaranteed goldmine. So why is it that more of the work could not have been done beforehand so that there would be more time for fallbacks/ contingencies and doing things properly so that you do not have things such as changing hair lengths and choppy scene transitions which just spoil the level of polish that the production could have had? The delay in the drama could have been avoided if work just had been planned properly but to me, it seems as if everything was done off the cuff at the 11th hour. What is up with that? What is so difficult or impossible about arranging and planning work such that everybody from front-line cast to tail-end production crew, is given at least a week’s worth of buffer to do what they are supposed to do PROPERLY and/or just simply stand and breathe??

In all fairness, ‘Boys Over Flowers’ is not a bad production. It is obvious from the ratings it garnered that the members of the general public found it entertaining to say the least. And almost all of drama’s leads are now on the fast-track to super stardom. I, in fact, do think that the picks for F4 did the manga justice. I however take great issue with the way that the whole drama was put together at the expense of the well-being of their cast and the level of quality that the production could have been at. Everything was jammed together so tightly that nobody had space to breathe much less move with ease.

And to add to the irritation that has stemmed from the state of that the cast is, these pathetic, ragged souls have to drag themselves all over the country to other work committments as well. What is wrong with the management agencies of these people?! Sure, you want to milk your cash cow while the going is still good. But the cow has to be given some time in between to rest, eat, breathe and do all these other things that all living things do keep themselves sane so that it can produce more milk. Is that not common sense? Then again, how silly of me to expect these people to have any common sense since to them, common cents seem to be more the order of the day.

I am just very upset with how things have gone with the whole entire ‘Boys Over Flowers’ production. And I am even more pissed with how frequent Hyun Joong’s trips to the hospital are and how he just is not staying put in there but just running all over the place still. So pray tell, what is the point of admitting him and giving him a supposed check-up if you are just going to let him back out on the streets to more of the things that put him into hospital in the first place?

Whatever. They are all getting flown to Japan on 12 April for the ‘Boys Over Flowers’ promotions there so the only consolation that one can get is that 12 April is still a couple of days away so maybe there is hope for rest in between. But. If I so much as hear a squeak about him, or ANYBODY for that matter, from that accursed production fainting again within the next three weeks, I am writing to complain to whoever it is at wherever it is even if it has to be in English since my Korean sucks worse than my Japanese. Will it make a difference? Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. It is an exercise in futility doomed to be just as successful as any attempt to strike up conversation with a brick wall. BUT. It will at least make ME feel better that I have actually done something so when it happens again, I can just wash my hands off obviously stupid people and not care anymore!

(Yeah right…)

Title :

Synopsis : Serizawa Naoto is a detective with an amazing track record for arrests due to his willingness to go to any lengths just to nab the perpetrator. He is also a man who is having trouble fighting his own demons for he is still racked with guilt over having caused the death of a schoolmate when they were still in high school. Naoto is therefore willing to risk life and limb each time to nab bad hats since he nurses a deep need to make up for the sins which he had committed in the past.

Naruse Ryo, on the other hand, is a young and very successful lawyer that has been dubbed an angel by those around him due to his record of fighting successful legal battles, and therefore securing justice for his clients. Ryo, despite his amicable demeanour, is a man who is hiding demons deep inside of him for he longs for vengeance against the people who had taken the life of his brother some years ago. He deeply hates the boys who caused his brother’s death and his hate is further rooted in his heart for his mother had died from grief due to the loss of her younger son thus robbing him of all the family that he had.

Things come to a head when a series of tarot cards are sent to Naoto by someone named Amano Makoto and Naoto is driven to a near craze when he realises that the tarot cards are but indicators of the judgment that is being carried out even as the people around him are being systematically killed for their involvement in the incident. Hence transpires the chain of events that will lead to the final showdown between these two embodiments of vengeance and regret.

Review : Whilst I have seen Toma in action several times before on-screen (eg, Dorky Toma in ‘Akiharabara @ DEEP’, Lovestruck Toma in ‘Hanakimi’, Sensitive Toma in ‘Hachikuro’), seeing Ohno in a dorama is something which is totally new. Ohno’s definitely no greenhorn in acting since he has been in the theatre circuit for as long as his peers have been in doramas. But seeing his performance in ‘Maou’, one wonders as to why people have not seen it fit to have him in a dorama as yet. Is it because he is not as pretty as the other members of Arashi? Maybe, since most people are inclined to be superficial in that way. But that is not really important in view of the things that I am about to say about to say.

Coming back to Ohno’s performance in the dorama, whilst it was not on an epic ‘WOW!!’ scale, I personally thought that he did very well for this, his first drama outing, and he was convincing as Naruse Ryo. Though Ryo was “a man without a heart”, there are several instances scattered throughout the dorama that showed that despite his longing for vengeance, Ryo did still feel as any other person would, that he still felt love, care and pain just as any other person would and these instances are most poignant especially whenever Shiori was around.

And speaking of Sakita Shiori, this bit of the dorama reminded me very much of the ‘Psychometer’ series of doramas with Matsuoka Masahiro and Inohara Yoshihiko all those many moons ago. It is the same thing really. Shiori, through contact of an item that has been in contact with the perpertrator, is able to derive information about the person and his/her surroundings and circumstances when he/ she had been in touch with the item in question. It is also probably appropriate to mention now that the divinition shop that Shiori runs is the very same shop that manufactures/ sells the tarot cards from which Ryo sends ‘Judgment’ to the people that he seeks vengeance from.

On the whole, the entire flow of the drama was good as it sets out very clearly from the start, the premise of things to come. Right from the offset, the anti-hero of Naruse Ryo is introduced as the hunter while the somewhat more traditional hero-figure of Serizawa Naoto is clearly marked as the prey and end-target of all that Ryo does and will do. And it is important to note that each one of Ryo’s acts of vengeance are calculated to cause Naoto maximum pain. For instance, the re-enaction of the stabbing of Kumada which triggers off Naoto’s memories of the death of his schoolmate and Ryo’s reaction to the tortured Naoto is a clear indication of the kind of game that Ryo has in mind for Naoto right up till the time when all these events will come to an end.

In a way, the feeling that this dorama gives me is pretty similar to that of ‘Suna no Utsuwa’ and even though it is a given right from the start that Ryo and Naoto will go head-to-head, the whole process was well plotted and presented through the drama and one has to applaud the original writer for having come up with such an intelligent story. WhiIe have yet to watch the Korean original and hence have (as of now) no basis for comparison, based on the merits this series alone, I would say that this is definitely a drama that is well worth watching.

My rating for this? 4.5/5

Synopsis : Hiromi is a good-for-nothing loafer who is thrown out of his girlfriend’s apartment when she gets sick of his freeloading. With only JPY900 to his name, Hiromi decides to roll with the season and head for the beach in his junky old jalopy in seach of a new place to take root. Kaitou, on the other hand, is a polished high-flyer in a multinational corporation who has hit a bad patch in his career when a multi-million dollar deal that he had been working on falls through. He decides to go on extended leave and after some thought decides to seek some peace and solitude in the arms of Mother Nature. Little does Kaitou know that ‘peace and solitude’ is the last thing that he will get this hot and humid summer when he and Hiromi find themselves butting head to head in aging surfer Masaru’s tiny beachside inn.

Snippet : Kaitou is on the way towards the coast in a train when he spots Hiromi in his run-down jalopy travelling on a road which is parallel to the train tracks. Kaitou one-sidedly decides that this a competition of ‘him in train’ vs ‘junky white jalopy on the road’. And as fate (and junky jalopies) would have it, the rickety car runs out of gas so Kaitou ‘wins’ the ‘race’. The normally reserved Kaitou jumps up elated at his ‘victory’ and rams his head into the overhead baggage compartment, bringing himself back to his regular prim-and-proper senses.

He soon gets his come-uppance when he passes Hiromi, who is pushing his petroless car along the road, in a cab. Feeling somewhat guilty about having ’caused’ the car to stall, Kaitou alights from his cab and goes help Hiromi push only to end up getting thrown into the sea with Hiromi when the brakes of the car fail to work on a downward slope headed for the water. Whilst Hiromi takes the incident in good stride and even makes overtures of friendship to Kaitou, Kaitou takes offence to everything and is particularly disgusted when Hiromi simply walks up to Masaru and shamelessly offers to work for Masaru in return for food and lodging. Kaitou’s ego is taken down a few notches when the loss of his wallet is discovered and he’s relegated from paying customer at the inn to labourer, sharing a room with Hiromi. Will these two polar opposites survive the summer being forced to live and work together? Or will Kaitou throttle Hiromi first for being so insanely irritating before the seasons turn?

Review : ‘Beach Boys’ was one of the earliest dramas that I watched and to-date, it’s one of the dramas that I remember and enjoyed best. It scores on the presence of a simple storyline, good pacing, good acting and chemistry by the cast and of course, an excellent soundtrack. That would be minus the theme song to the dorama coz the song was very obviously out of Sorimachi’s range, but that (together with a full dissertation on how perfectly gorgeous Takenouchi Yutaka is) is another story for another day.

‘Beach Boys’ is essentially the story of a man’s journey in learning the importance of living life to the fullest and how being true to oneself paves the way to happiness. Kaitou’s life had been fulfilling thus far in that he  has had a successful career, worked under a boss who thought the world of him and had a beautiful and intelligent girlfriend by his side to boot. It was in view of this life that he had that he had looked upon Hiromi and the ‘live each day as it comes’ attitude that he had towards life with disdain. It was only after he was forced to live and spend time with Hiromi and the other residents at the laid-back beachside town that he learned that there was more to life than work and getting ahead in the rat race.

Through Masaru, Masaru’s granddaughter Makoto and the cheery bar owner Haruko, Kaitou learns the importance of the bond between people that transcend blood ties. Kaitou also picks up lessons from the free-spirited Hiromi of what it means to move beyond the expectation of others to live life as one chooses and not how others expect one to live. Thus enters Kaitou’s stuggle of ‘heart vs mind’ when faced with the choice of going back to his urban dog lifestyle or staying out the summer with Hiromi and gang.

The running theme of the sea is very much in line with the free-spiritedness that is the theme of the dorama. The two main characters, for example, have names that are sea-related (広海/海都) and everything that happens is centred around the seafront inn run by Masaru.

If you like a light-hearted dorama with a storyline that is all about people and the ties that bind, do try watching this. It is an oldie but a classic and definitely worth anybody’s time of day.

My rating for this? : 5/5

Let’s face it. Idol dissing is something that everybody does to a certain extent because not everybody thinks/feels the same way about the same people and things. That’s just how things are. It is perfectly fine for a person to like/dislike any given thing because that’s their prerogative as an independent individual. But some of the things that people say in response to posts on some idols/idol groups are really just plain rude and totally disregard the fact that the people whom these comments are aimed at, do have the right and freedom to like whoever it is that they like.

Consider some of the remarks made to this post at Popseoul.

I am admittedly no DBSK fangirl because while I do know of the group and have my own opinions on the group and their music, I don’t know them well enough to be a fan coz (surprise!) I’m not so much into Korean pop culture. But as a general reader, I found some of these comments particularly offensive and disrespectful to the whole concept of fandom itself. It doesn’t matter who or what the subject matter is. The mere act of dismissing and/or verbally attacking/abusing people purely because of their likes is, on all counts, offensive and disrespectful. Just as a person has the right to hold and give negative views on something, the person on the other side of the fence has an equal right to hold and give positive views on the same thing. It is as simple as that. And any self-respecting individual with a shadow of civility and/or decency in his/her body should respect this mutual right to like/dislike whatever that we choose to.

I found it particularly interesting that one of the more offensive comments came from a person who has stated his/her preferences for female acts like Jewelry and Hyori Lee. And it was this particular comment that reminded me of a rant which I had sometime back over over a similar matter involving Hello! Project and Johnnys Entertainment.

I quote myself below and I think that this past rant of mine sufficiently puts across my sentiments on the issue of aggressive idol dissing. Please note though that the rant was directed in particular at males because I knew the people that were doing the dissing. But I trust that the direction in which the rant was pointed does not make it any less valid as an expression of my views on the matter to anybody on either side of the gender fence.

+++

Sometimes I really wonder what is up with the double-standards. Rika and Konkon can sound like angels from heaven when they’re just squawking along behind other people. Even a quacking duck like Sawajiri apparently possesses God-sent talent where it comes to vocal prowess. But oohhhh! If it’s anybody from Johnnys, they all suck and they’re just dumb.

“Ohh~ Rika’s butt is so awesome!! She can dance!! Watch her shake it out!! Woohoo!! Johnnys?? Er… Right. Look at them losers trying to tell left foot from right. HAHAHA!”

“Ohhh~ GAM feeling each other up and smooching is so awesome and they should do it more coz it’s hot!! Johnnys, hell, look at them. They look like girls! They’re all gay!”

Right. Sure they’re all gay and useless but as compared to you with the big mouth, I’m not so sure.

And of course, show how awesomely MALE you are by slacking them off coz they all just happen to be of same gender as you and at almost half your age/ the same age as you, are already infinitely more successful than you are or ever will be since they come from the most influential and successful idol marketing conglomerate that Japan has ever had and ever will have why don’t you. There’s a term for this isn’t there? Penis envy?

And in case you have not noticed, just because somebody is not of your preferred gender to hump does NOT make them talentless. Making it a constant issue by saying it every now and then that ‘Johnnys = gay/lose’ does not emphasise how macho you are. It does NOT make you cool. It just highlights to the world as to how shallow a person you are.

“As compared to ABCD, Johnnys has no talent”

“As compared to ABCD, Johnnys can’t sing”

“As compared to ABCD, Johnnys can’t dance”

Johnnys has no talent? Sure. Try Sakamoto Masayuki from V6. If you can sing, on pitch, even half of the kind of songs that he can at his age while doing the kind of dancing that he does at 35, then we’ll talk. Or if that’s too difficult for you, maybe you try doing one-hand backsprings at age 33 just like SMAP’s Kusanagi Tsuyoshi can, then maybe we’ll have some common ground to discuss the matter further. And the last time I checked, it wasn’t anybody from ABCD that was getting invites for international acting opportunities but SMAP’s Kimura Takuya and Arashi’s Ninomiya Kazunari. And who made you an authority to have it so sure that to everybody’s ears and eyes, ABCD can definitely sing and defnitely dance?

Oh. And since when has XYZ group which is allegedly SO AWESOME coz they’re “so hot” and “so sexy” and “so talented” sold out whole series of concerts at the domes? Oh. I forget. XYZ group that you’re so enamoured over, which JE is completely “da lose” and “gay” as compared to them, NEVER gets solo shows at the domes! They only hold concerts in arenas and halls which are a fraction of the capacity of a dome and they only get to smell dome air when performing with every other act that is being managed by their agency twice a year!! HAH! I’m guessing that this really is what people call “REAL TALENT” eh?

Yup. I know. This is just gonna be taken that I’m saying all this and having another hissy, catty girl-fit coz I’m a Johnnys fangirl and I’m just siding with them. Sure it’s easy enough to dismiss my ranting as me being a dumb fangirl again. But welcome to my world mate where JE-anybody is slacked off as being lame and talentless just coz they are JE. And guess what. The ones doing it are, more often than not, MALE.

At the end of the day, everybody has their own opinions which they should be respected for. You like who you like and I’ll like who I like. So be it. It is just downright bloody RUDE to keep going on and on (either expressly or otherwise) about how lame-assed or “gay” you think some male group is just because they are JE and just because your other fellow ignorant males THINK that it’s cool to slack JE off.

And since I’m on this topic, let me just state that it is freakin’ PATHETIC to hear every damned thing being labelled “gei/gay”. What’s this? Can’t spell?! Never learned enough vocabulary in your life to express yourself properly? So insecure with your own manhood that everything that doesn’t agree with you is automatically labelled as “gay” coz you just HAVE to use the word to emphasise as to how macho/superior you are??

Some people just have to wean themselves off from being bloody children but I guess being an insensitive bastard and remaining a pathetically sad and narrow-minded retard is generally accepted as being “cooler” in some quarters.

Title :

Synopsis : Huh Cho Hee is a ‘tough-as-nails’ officer with the Enforcement Unit of the Cultural Properties Administration. Her dedication to her job and ‘never-say-die’ attitude has resulted in the retrieval of many priceless national artefacts from the hands of tomb robbers and their rich and influential clients. Her ‘by-the-book’ disposition towards work finally meets its match in the form of the suave and smooth-talking Kim Bum Sang. Ever the ladies’ man, Bum Sang is extremely talented in antique appraisal and restoration but his flippant attitude and lack of discretion where it comes to the private ownership of national artefacts irritates Cho Hee to no end, especially since Bum Sang is her superior at the Administration.

Things come to a head when a series of stolen artefacts are anonymously returned to the Administration. The duo and their friends thus find themselves in a race against time to find the person responsible for these returns and to save him/her from the hands of the vengeful private collector who will stop at nothing to get back at the one who stole these treasures from him.

Snippet : The drama starts off with Cho Hee and Bum Sang each heading off to Japan over a lotus engraved vase which had been lost during the Korea 6.25 War, Cho Hee having been sent by the Cultural Properties Administration and Bum Sang travelling on the orders of Chairman Jang, the owner of a major business conglomerate who has a penchant for amassing prized national treasures for his own personal collection. Cho Hee, whose mission is to nab the antique smuggler known as ‘Kim Sang’ mistakes Bum Sang for the target (mainly because in Japanese, Bum Sang is also known as ‘Kim-san’) and while masquerading as the smuggler’s middleman Suzuki Hanako, ends up following Bum Sang into the house of Tanaka Ichiro, the Japanese yakuza boss who is now in possession of the lotus engraved vase. Which of them will end up winning possession of the vase? Who is the real ‘Kim Sang’? Tune in to find out.

Review : One of the main reasons as to why I chose to write my own synopsis instead of ‘lifting’ it off someplace else is because the bulk of the synopsis for this drama which I came across, had the lines about Cho Hee being naturally sexy and Bum Sang being crazy about virgins. And after finishing the series, I personally found neither of these statements to be true.

To cut it right to the chase, the opening credits with Kim Sun Ah in that chic bob and figure-hugging dress was nothing short of outright misrepresentation. It is true that during the initial parts of the drama, there were indications dropped here and there about how Cho Hee oozes sexiness through remarks  such as those made over her S-line figure and her alleged affairs and how she made it to becoming a supervisor. But for me, I found Kim Sun Ah’s Huh Cho Hee to be looking every bit as frumpy as her other alter ego Kim Sam Soon. Cho Hee’s wardrobe only started its progressive improvement midway through the series after she got hospitalised from injuries suffered while shielding her beloved Chief Kang (Lee Joo Hyun) from some falling wooden crates. Which to me, was kind of too late especially since the drama was first being sold on the premise of Cho Hee being sexy and misunderstood. And as for Bum Sang, he is the perfect epitome of God’s gift to womenkind as long as you are female, put him on a pedestal and do not get in the way of his ambitions like how Cho Hee does. But I digress…

For all my griping over Kim Sun Ah’s wardrobe (or lack thereof), ‘Every Night’ was a drama that I enjoyed very much even though it took me a bit to get over how annoyingly petty the character of Kim Bum Sang was in the beginning. And speaking of Kim Bum Sang, his was the character that showed most progression (as much as Kim Sun Ah’s wardrobe) throughout the drama. Though there were little things like how he shielded Cho Hee from the yazuka underlings in the first episode even though he found out that she was only masquerading as an antique smuggler’s middleman, that showed that Bum Sang was truly a gentleman despite how irritating he was, his two-facedness really made one just want to join Cho Hee in tearing out her hair in frustration. And it is easy to see as to why Cho Hee gets so annoyed with Bum Sang.

While Cho Hee is dedicated to her job, Bum Sang is generally lazy and lackadaisical towards his duties, preferring to drive round in his snazzy car calling his mass of girlfriends instead of spend the time sweating it out on the field heping them nab tomb thieves. Cho Hee firmly believes that national artefacts belong to the country and should be kept at the museum for all to enjoy since they are part of every citizen’s cultural heritage. It therefore frustrates her to no end that Bum Sang has no qualms of doing artefact appraisal, retrieval and restoration for private collectors such as Chairman Jang, for personal gain instead of seeking to return such artefacts to the nation whom these artefacts truly belong. Thus sets out the premise of the tale that makes ‘Every Night’.

It was pretty interesting watching the ways in which these two polar opposites found ways and means to make digs and jibes at each other, throwing spanners into the works that they are each trying to set up. But while the main leads shared good chemistry, the enjoyment of the drama was greatly enhanced by the two main supporting cast of Kim Jung Hwa and Lee Joo Hyun. Kim Jung Hwa’s Wang Joo Hyun, with an ego big enough to rival that of Kim Bum Sang’s, never failed to draw a chuckle from me with how narcissistic she was. And in addition to the eye-candy factor that Lee Joo Hyun brought to the drama, I found great joy in watching just how his character Kang Shi Wan handles/manages Wang Joo Hyun’s princess-like behaviour.

Story-wise, while I felt that it was one which was worthy of being a ratings buster, I felt that a little too much time was spent on developing the rivalry and relationship between the Cho Hee and Bum Sang. While it does become clear as to why the setting up of the drama in such a way was necessary, one just feels that if the story had been tightened and the pace upped earlier than mid-way through the series, the drama would have done better than it did in the ratings war against the other dramas that were airing during the same period.

Overall, if you want a drama that is simple, enjoyable and easy to understand, ‘Every Night’ is a drama for you.

My rating for this? : 4/5

And speaking of ‘Nodame Cantabile’, take a look at Koide Keisuke. Hardly anybody took any real notice of him till his turn as the madcap, lovelorn Masumi in ‘Nodame’. And the next thing we knew was that he had bagged himself a suave lead role opposite Hasegawa Kyoko in ‘Oishii Propose’. His recent roles in ‘Ushi ni Negai wo’ and ‘ROOKIES’ weren’t quite so meaty but they were definitely a whole lot more decent than what he used to have before.

That said, even being part of the all-mighty Johnny’s Jimusho does not spare you from being an underdog. Look at Ikuta Toma. Toma’s been popular among JE fangirls for a long while but he’s always been overshadowed by Yamap and it doesn’t really help that the main bulk of his work revolved around theatre. If you are pretty much mainstream like me without any exposure to the Japanese theatre scene, you won’t know of Toma. But one uber endearing turn as Nakatsu Shuichi in ‘HanaKimi’ and he is now scoring lead roles in ‘HachiKuro’ and ‘Maou’. Before this, you hardly ever saw Toma in dorama unless you were one of the few that watched ‘Akiharabara @ DEEP’, which btw is a dorama that I would recommend watching at least once.

And speaking of Toma, the next underdog whom I think we will be seeing more of on the small screen would be Ohno Satoshi. Despite being the voice of Arashi, Ohno has always been overshadowed by the rest of his ‘prettier’ group mates coz well. He really isn’t as good-looking as either Sho or MatsuJun. Now, with him flexing his acting chops for all the world to see through his leading turn in ‘Maou’, I am almost positive that if he continues doing as well as he has been doing, that we will be seeing more of him soon.

And one of the best recent examples of the emerging underdog is Sato Ryuta. Let’s face it. The bloke is not what anyone would call leading man material. He’s tall, lanky and gangly with hair that is on perma frizz mode and he looks like a dumb goofball. In fact, almost all his roles have him acting as the dumb goofball! Take his role of ‘Master’ in the ‘Kisarazu Cats Eye’ series for a very pointed example of his goofball-ness. BUT. Just take a look at his turn as Kawato Kyoichi in ‘ROOKIES’. He’s still goofy and the ‘Boom!’ hair’s still there, but he’s doing nothing short of AWESOME! Btw, his turn in ‘Bambino!’  as that uber serious bandana-wearing chef that was always ready to chew MatsuJun’s head off for screwing up was REALLY AWESOME too. Maji de KAKKOII!! But I digress.

The point of it all is that it is heartening to see some of these blokes who have been living in the shadow of others for so long, finally have their day out in the sun. At least there’s something there for them in the work that they do, speaking of which I had better go do mine as well. And now, I shall go back to listening to the GReeeeN album of which the ‘ROOKIES’ theme ‘Kiseki’ is on which sparked off this post in the first place.

PS : If I really think about it, I guess this whole thing’s about Sato Ryuta? LOL!!