Kazoku Kashimasu is about this company called Family Romance that rents family members to people. At the beginning of the movie, we see the boss played by Tamaki Hiroshi acting as the husband to various single mothers sitting in school interviews to get their child accepted to schools. I've seen this idea of people hiring fake family members before in doramas/movies but to show it from the perspective of a business that provides such services is a brilliant idea.
Tanaka Rena plays of course the idealistic newbie who comes to the company and straight away we get to see the company run a job where they are playing the guests of bride at a wedding ceremony because the bride's parents are divorced and she used to be a prostitute. It was fun watching the employees of Family Romance play the relatives, colleagues, former classmates and friends of the bride. I'm just thinking that this concept is a gold mine for stories. Its like watching a dorama about people trying to act as characters in a dorama but in real life and on the fly.
The main story of Kazoku Kashimasu is a dying rich man played Takenaka Naoto. His wife and daughter has left him and he wants to hire a wife and daughter to film his last days. Good news is not so much overacting from Takenaka Naoto and the story actually turns out to be pretty good. I was expecting it to turn into a cliched, overly sentimental mess but it turns out to be pretty funny and touching.
Kazoku Kashimasu feels like the pilot episode of a great dorama series. It is practically screaming to be made into a dorama series with the ending talking various interesting jobs that the staff of Family Romance are doing. This will make and awesome dorama series as long as they don't try to force feed a moral lesson in every episode. The fun is watching characters pull things off and seeing how they deal with various problems. Kazoku Kashimasu is somewhere between pretty good and must watch but Tanaka Rena pushes it closer toward must watch for me. :)
7 comments:
This is a great concept! I am going to watch this. This season has been quite a letdown so I'm hoping it's good.
Thanks for recommending Mike. Would've never found about it otherwise. Rena Tanaka is stunning. Just adore her =3
I immediately had to think of Noriko's Dinner Table. Very similar, but that was much darker, and far superior being a product of Sion Sono.
It felt very much as a pilot episode. can't imagine that there won't be a follow up.
This is the best "drama special" I've ever seen, honestly. The concept, the stories, the characters, the actors... Indeed it feels like a pilot in the US-style where they demonstrate the goods and the station then picks it up. Now I pray to the drama gods that they will turn this into a regular, like Strawberry Night.
Speaking of Sion Sono, Kazoku Kashimasu does use a lot of classical music which is his trademark except there are no poetic soliloquys.
Immediately thought of Noriko's dinner table too, which is my 2nd favourite Sono movie. It's just a great movie.
It seems like I'm the only one who has not seen Noriko's Dinner Table. :(
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