I was really going to give this a miss when a saw it was going to be another Kagawa Teruyuki playing another overacting villain in another variation of Hanzawa Naoki.
I ended up giving episode 1 a show and luckily Kagawa Teruyuki is not a sneering villain and secondly while it is another Hanzawa Naoki with a banker fighting against overwhelming odds, Shudan Sasen doesn't take itself too seriously and there is a kind of showa innocence with the always positive and ganbaru Fukuyama Masaharu as the main character.
Shudan Sasen is like this fable that as long as you work hard, you will succeed even if your own bank is against you and wants to see you fail.
The standard plot of banking jdoramas is that if you show your sincerity and effort, clients will be impressed.
How much you enjoy the show will depend on how much you enjoy such positivity. On a side note, happy to see Nakamura Anne from Suits in this. Also, I love the theme song. Never heard of Elephant Kashimashi before this but they remind me very much of Ulfuls.
I can see myself getting tired of Fukuyama Masaharu's ganbaru everything solution but at least we've got the mystery of who's the traitor to keep us guessing and I'm 100% sure its not Kagawa Teruyuki.
On the whole, I don't hate Shudan Sasen which was unexpected. Maybe Fukuyama's showa positivity is more conducive to my tastes rather than the always sneering, taking itself too seriously Hanzawa Naoki. If you like your Japanese banking doramas where the odds are stacked so high any sane person would have given up, this show is for you.
According to IMDB, there was a Shudan Sasen movie made in 1994 starring Shibata Kyohei (Hagetaka). I would be very interested in watching that one.
2 comments:
Do yourself a favour and listen to some more Elephant Kashimashi. They've been around since the 1980s and they're still amazing.
I watched the first episode of this and wasn't sure what to think of it. Still not sure but we'll see. I really like Fukuyama Masaharu.
@Sonna~ I've started listening to the Best of Album the fighting man. What are you three favourite songs from Elephant Kashimashi?
Post a Comment