I didn't particularly like Shinzanmono. Its less police procedure and more feel good stories as every episode Kaga uncovered stuff about people's past. You can be 100% sure that its basically someone who is not thought of well, ends of being a nice person. Not to mention a lot of what Kaga did had nothing to do with the murder mystery.
Don't get too excited, Tanaka Rena only has a small role in this.
The Wings of the Kirin is similar. It starts off as a murder mystery and luckily the movie doesn't allow Kaga to uncover the past of every character he comes across. It basically takes its time to build up the revelation, which is pretty good except they could have easily cut 30 minutes from the runtime if the police had bothered to check the murder victim's car. If you liked Shinzanmono, you'll definitely love this movie. For me it was watchable.
The above screen cap is the stupidest lines in the movie which was asked by Kaga's superior after Kaga uncovers new evidence. Obviously many people enjoy Shinzanmono but I can't enjoy a murder mystery that aims to manufacture touching, safe feel good moments and pays lip service to police and forensic steps.
If you're looking for a hard boiled detective dorama/comedy dealing with issues like adultry, blackmail, affairs, chikan and various adult stories, this spiritual successor to Tokumei Kakaricho Tadano Hitoshi is the right dorama for you. The only difference with Tadano Hitoshi is that there are no nipples but otherwise its the same thing with a fresh coat of paint. If I remember correctly the last season of Tadano Hitoshi also lacked full top exposure because its moved to a pre-midnight slot.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's Tsubasa Amami.
Takahashi Katsunori is back in his element. His overacting suits B-grade doramas better and I find the tame adult comedy very entertaining. No English subs but watching with Japanese subs is good for studying Japanese. The original Japanese subs were actually timed for the actual Japanese broadcast with ad breaks but the raws at d-addicts did not have ads so it was a bitch retiming it. I had actually retimed ep 2 and nearly finished with ep 1 when it finally occurred to me to check d-addicts for retimed subs.
Thanks to roronoa for the retimed subs and \( -o _ o- )/ for uploading to d-addicts. Too bad furransu won't continue uploading the better resolution version. A lot of fun to watch for me. On a side note, Earthburi team have subbed Double Face. Can't wait for part 2!
The one on the left kinda looks like Nanaumi Nana.
All the Tadano Hitoshi sex sessions have been replaced by S&M sessions. Kinda miss the Tadano Hitoshi super wink into bedding women for info every episode.
Lol, reminds me of this side story in Ryu ga gotoku 2 or 3!
This year's Japanese Film Festival has a kick-ass line up. Its basically going around Australia at the moment and will be in Melbourne from 29 Nov to 9 Dec this year. Having missed out on tickets for Ace Attorney for the Melbourne International Film Festival, I bought tickets as soon as I heard about the festival. I bought tickets for the following four movies but I might go see more..
THERMAE ROMAE
Abe Hiroshi as a Roman who time travels to Japan. All the reason there is to watch this.
DREAMS FOR SALE
Abe Sadao and Matsu Takaku in a movie about marriage swindling. I think this is going to be the best movie shown during the festival.
KEY OF LIFE
All I know is that its about taking someone's identity and got a good review on Twitchfilm. Good enough for me.
RUROUNI KENSHIN
I can't believe there's only one screening in Melbourne! I managed to get tickets but I can pretty much guarantee that this will be the first movie sold out. Can't bloody wait. If you're in Australia, do visit the Festival website as see if there are any other movies that interest you.
I enjoyed the Spec series. Its half investigative X-men story with quirky Trick-like humour. The overacting final boss of the first season kept it from being must watch and I very much enjoyed Spec: Sho cause we finally get to see Toma's Spec and it brought the series to a full circle so I could bloody ignore that cartoonish villain. However, Spec: Ten is a disappointment for me.
MAJOR SPOILERS ALERT!
So Toma seals her Spec powers and Ninomae is back. Another group of Spec people are planning to rule the world, blah blah blah. We get this elite group of police storming this base to kill these Spec torrorists without even gathering intel on their powers. I know Spec is a comedy but I just didn't find anything funny in this movie so my mind just kept wandering.
The one thing that could have been really funny was Ito Atsushi playing himself. They could have made jokes about his whiny characters in jdoramas and he can be like the total opposite in real life. Nope, most of the jokes are about Kuriyama Chiaki's CIA character who speaks with broken Japanese. Probably a cultural gap thing I guess. Let's not mention the horrible Ito Atsushi's horrible CG tentacles. Surely there are better ways to do his Spec power?
Anyway, turns out the Ninomae was a clone. Zzzzzzzzz. In the end, there were plenty of Ninomae and they all get erased by this new baddie who can seemingly erase things. If only Mr Baddie can erase this movie as well. Basically the whole movie is Toma gets her powers back and is in danger of being seduced by it ala Evil Ryu. Sebumi still hasn't learned that he should probably should bad guys with Spec powers straight away and the whole thing is to introduce new baddie and Sebumi's possible child who could also be a product of ghostly/spirit intercourse.
Spec: Ten should have been done as a series. Spec: Sho was a better two hour feature to wrap up the series. Spec: Ten feels like a small stepping stone to introduce elements for a new season/movie. They basically did not need to make a movie that sets things up but does not have any payoff. Felt very redundant to me.
The biggest concern heading into season 2 was are there enough JRPG jokes left to mine? After all, there were times in the first season where things got a bit repetitive though on the whole it was a very funny series. The answer to that is a resounding yes! There are still plenty to JRPG cliches to make fun of and even jokes we've seen like villagers not wanting to go quests can be done in a new way.
Very funny first episode about Hotoke bringing the old gang back with a slight problem and it ends with a great cliffhanger. Hopefully they can keep this up. Looks like this year of jdoramas is saved. I am anxiously awaiting the second episode of Going My Home to see whether the good first episode can turn into a good series.
I don't remember Murasaki dealing with getting revenge for her father's murder in the first season. Hope they can do a funny story about this season.
Poor magician who's stuck with stupid spells cause they don't have money.
Danjo can be a mine for funny stories since they can have various people from his hopefully funny past pop up.
The end of the year is nigh and its time for annual calender lucky draw. Lucky draw as in I can never find decent sized previews of all the pictures and I have to go by cover and hope for the best. Mano Erina calenders have always been good with the 2012 one being awesome. Please excuse the shoddy quality of photos.
Would be better if she weren't wearing the stripped long sleeve thingie.
Me likey.
Kawaii.
Should have just been the bottom left picture by itself.
Would have been good without the stupid square stuff.
Nice.
A smile to brighten any day....
Links for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 Mano Erina calenders.
Firstly, I bloody love the whole Infernal Affairs trilogy. Secondly, Japan needs a good kick-ass police show and the general public's idea of a good police show is Odoru Daisasousen and not Gaiji Keisatsu. Double Face is a very faithful remake of Infernal Affairs. It feels like a shot for shot, dialogue for dialogue remake with some new scenes to make up the 1 1/2 hours running time. Senyuu Sousa is of course the first part of a 2 parter dorama special.
Nishijima Hidetoshi does a pretty good Tony Leung impression. He plays Takayama, the brooding cop stuck in the life of a undercover yakuza, trying to keep his cover and uncover the mole on the other side. Kagawa Teruyuki plays the Andy Lau character Moriya, the yakuza mole. Wakui Emi plays the psychiatrist who the cop goes to see which is like a 100 times better than Kelly Chen, which was the one weak link in Infernal Affairs.
While Senyuu Sousa follows pretty much 3/4 of Infernal Affairs and we do see both characters so it doesn't really feel like the story is told especially from the Tony Leung perspective. It feels like I'm rewatching Infernal Affairs except the characters are speaking Japanese which is a good thing. I bloody hate the Departed because it completely missed the essence of what made Infernal Affairs so good; a cop and a bad guy living the double life and both finding their loyalties torn.
However, the preview for Part 2 Giso Keisatsu shows that Double Face is going to take a radical departure Infernal Affairs where they are removing the token girlfriend and replacing her with Aoi Yu and telling the story from the Andy Lau character perspective, which the third Infernal Affairs movie pretty much was. The undercover triad guy wanting to be the good guy. I'm excited to see how they are going to do it in the framework of the first movie. Hopefully, they won't change or water down the ending.
Kita Yoshio is in everything.
Double face just looks awesome. They've clearly spend a lot of money on this, hence doing it on two networks. They've even got a did some pretty good car chase sequences in the beginning. One thing missing though is the flashbacks and the iconic moment where Tony Leung and Andy Lau are sitting down listening to Tsai Chin's 'The Forgotten'. I can see why they didn't have the music part cause some things are just magic and can't be replicated but the flashbacks really helped establish the relationship between Tony Leung and Anthony Wong's character.
The Infernal Affairs trilogy is a cinema classic. Nothing can ever top it but Double Face is a great photocopy of it. The interesting part will be part 2 because that's where it can add a lot more character stuff to a story which I rewatch every year. Must watch.
