I continued watching Namonaki Doku based on Rootabega's comments and it is such a weird dorama. We've got Mr Nice Guy Sugimuro who's not at all connected to the incidents but who gets himself involved cause he's too nice. He's not an everyman hero because he's too nice to be real and he finally showed himself to be human at the last episode with the wall slamming scene but then he quickly feels guilty about it.
I do get what the writer is trying to say here. I would have preferred a bit less preaching at the end but the story worked for me. I get the nameless poison topic. I could not agree with any character who felt sorry for the crazy woman Harada Izumi played by Eguchi Noriko. She clearly has some chemical imbalance issues in the brain and treating her like a sane person is just stupid.
Namonaki Doku kept me entertained especially when the two girls entered the company, I mean when the coffee scene happened. The highlight was the kitchen window scene. When Maya Miki's character turned up I was like 'WTF, you're going to get the girl killed!' Speaking of Maya Miki, I never liked her acting. There's something about the way she acts that feels insincere but in this case, it works because we are suppose to doubt her character.
The strength of Namonaki Doku is the directing and writing, except for the devoid of personality Sugimura dude. I get that he to be a nice girl for the story but he doesn't need to be that nice. 'I feel so bad cause I had murderous intent when my child was threatened' straddles the border of too nice and stupid. Acting wise, its up and down but on the whole watchable series that's slightly different.
Rootabega sez:
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for your thoughts on the second part of Namonaki Doku. I was totally cringeing at the preachy wrap-up at the end, but I'm glad it wasn't a total waste for you. Well, it tried to enter WOWOW territory (the way they showed the jump from the balcony actually freaked me out), it still had a mainstream look and less interesting actors - MAJOR exception, Noriko Eguchi, whose portrayal of Izumi Harada embodied the dorama's theme of "the banality of evil" to perfection. Not surprising because she's, you know, a real actress. I couldn't help thinking when Sugimura was knocking Harada's head against the wall that she would still have a ten times more brain cells, despite the crazy, than he could ever hope for. Actually, what was this milquetoast doing in a suspense dorama, anyways. They should have dispensed with him and expanded the part-time detective's part instead. That would have been a WOWOW worthy move ;)