There was a time I used to like Kimutaku jdoramas. Then he Karei Naru Ichizoku and I thought he was trying to hard to be cool when his character wasn't. Then he did Mr Brain , Change, and Tsuki no Koibito and I stopped watching his stuff.
Recently because of Judge Eyes and Lost Judgement I have tried out BG which was ok and I decided to try A Life since it had the late Takeuchi Yuko. After all they had really good chemistry in Pride. Unfortunately I lasted 5 episodes which in hindsight was a few episodes too much. It helped that there was no good acting to pay full attention to so here are my 5 reasons why you should avoid A Life.
1) Kimutaku trying too hard to be cool be leaving all his books open on the floor. Its like a kid trying to tell his mother, siblings, grandmother and next door neighbour that he is reading 20 freaking books at once.
2) Tadanobu Asano stuck with a 2D villain with villain hair. He acts like a bad guy but our main hero Kimutaku is too stupid to notice. He has zero chemistry with Takeuchi Yuko even though they are married. They don't sleep together, no show of affection, nothing. He is supposed to be the mirror to Kimutaku's main character but Asano's character has no nuance.
3) Takeuchi Yuko is supposed to be this pitiful ex girlfriend of Kimutaku who married the wrong guy when Kimutaku thought she was broke up with him. Cry me a river. She is the daughter of hospital boss, doesn't have to work overtime and is too stupid to realise husband is banging the lawyer. Please no chemistry between her and Kimutaku.
4) Takeuchi Yuko is a surgeon which brain tumour and not only do Tadanobu Asano and Kimutaku don't tell her, they allow her to continue seeing and operating on patients. Which part of patient's right to know and patient's right not to have a surgeon who could a seizere at any time does the writer not understand. Everything is so contrived.
5) Waste of acting abilities. They had Tadanobu Asano and Matsuyama Kenichi and it is wasted with the contrived script which feels like a Kimutaku vanity project set in a hospital.
SUMMARY
Do not watch A Life. If you want Kimutaku x Takeuchi Yuko, watch Pride. If you want good hospital drama with great writing and characters, watch Shiroi Kyoto.
2 comments:
I am a big fan of Kimutaku but unfortunately I'm forced to agree that his recents dramas are not as good as what it used to be. I don't think it is just a problem of characters, the writing has not been so great either.... Nervertheless sometimes we can see some good stuff like BG and specially the Kyojo Specials (1 and 2). But I think it is time for him to focus a little more in his movie career until some really good drama-plot appears....
Side note: Yuko Takeuchi, I will always regret that we can't continue to see new things with her, gone too soon.... Still One my favorites since pride e etc.
R.I.P.
This was a terrible drama and waste of Asano Tadanobu. I will never understand why he got such a crap role and was made to play second fiddle to Kimutaku. The medical stuff was all over the place too.
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