Bullets in the brain will do strange things to a drama...
Not so many tears this time though, its not the same bullet in the head story as Sorry I love you, this time not everyone you love dies, and we have the added bonus of ghosts.
Yup, I thought it might be another Tokyo Dogs style drama when it first started, but then I thought Oguri's character looked pretty subdued and wasn't sure where it was going - I watched it while it was airing so didn't have a clue what it was about.
After a short while the weird kicks in - I dont mean like Yuusha Yoshihiko weird, I just mean the ghost whisperer format begins.
It felt unexpected, and I suddenly realised what kind of drama this would be. Everything else is pretty normal real life style, with this thrown in as his personal battle.
There are some ghosts I really liked, and some moments can get a bit weepy as you might expect but over all not too depressing of a drama. Although anything involving the death of children obviously gets pretty upsetting.
I liked the relationship between the main characters, but I just wanted him to be honest about his ghost whispering with the forensics woman. They were an interesting pair and I think they could have made more of their connection with making them better friends from earlier.
I like seeing people talking to ghosts and trying to be inconspicuous. Has no-one seriously thought of using hands free ear pieces to make it look like they are just on the phone??? People do indeed think you are mental. I mean, you are, but not for that reason.
Basically Oguri's character gets shot, has a bullet lodged in his brain and it makes him see ghosts. He has to deal with the choice of whether to remove the bullet and if so when. Its a tricky situation for many reasons and he has a massive dilemma on his hands with that and eventually begins to feel himself pulled into a darker side of morality.
He uncovers underground criminal activity issues even within his own team - I don't think I actually mentioned he was a police detective yet did I?
Well anyway, as he chases the bad guys who killed his newly formed ill fated friends with clues from the patchy memories of their own deaths, he discovers the intertwining nasties behind the scenes and the story becomes much bigger for him than he expected.
He wonders if he will retain this power once he has the bullet removed, he wonders if he will even survive it. And he wonders if he can really give up this ability after saving the souls of the victims he encounters.
Yeah it get s a bit deep and slightly existential but not so much as a Clone Baby style drama would. This has a more mature script and set of actors in the make up, so it is not all rammed down your throat at once with furrows of worry accompanied by a naff sound track of only one melodramatic song.
But with the more mature take on these matters comes a more serious story line which can get pretty dark at times.
It is mature, but it has many light relief moments, some darker moments for sure but it doesn't really fit into the super intense psychological drama category, at least not until the savage ending.
I'm not sure where it fits really but it was well received at the time, the ratings were good, and I think the cast had a lot to do with that. Oguri Shun's dramas do tend to be pretty high these days and at least the writing was good enough to keep a steady pace throughout.
It wasn't the best drama I've ever seen, at times it was a little bit flat; it didn't grip me like more tense dramas of the mid to late 2000's like Maou and Orthros. But I dont think its meant to be that kind of show. To be honest I think it stands in its favour because those overly tense dramas can be a bit too much sometimes.
It features some really good guest actors as the ghosts and side story characters such as Omori Nao (Hagetaka) who plays a child killer so unbelievably well in the most uncomfortable and disconcerting way, I thought he was fantastic at portraying the distant cold sense of a psychopath. I could watch a whole series of just him and Oguri Shun's character in a mind game battle chase drama.
And also Takito Kenichi (Hanzawa Naoki) as a reporter who sees everything a bit like a stalker would before it all becomes something even out of his remit.
One of the other guests I noticed was Koyanagi Yuu who played Chiba in Yankii kun to Megane chan, but no-one has really done a proper complete cast list of the guest stars as far as I can see.
Main cast list:
Oguri Shun - Ishikawa Ango
Aoki Munetaka - Tachibana Yuma
Haru - Higa Mika
Endo Kenichi - Ichikura Takuji
Furuta Arata - Akai
Takito Kenichi - Suzuki Nomaguchi
Haruki - Miyazato
Watanabe Saori - Hashizume
Yamaguchi Yoshiyuki - Kaiko
Toru Nomaguchi- Hacker Garfunkel
Hamano Kenta - Hacker Simon
Well I think this was a pretty badly written review but as I'm at work right now I cant concentrate too hard on what I'm saying. Shirking with an hour and a half left still to go with nothing to do unless I do all of tomorrow's stuff too....
Its nice to try and remember these dramas first before getting screen shots, it makes me realise just how little I remember of some shows, sometimes not long after I've seen them.
This one I do remember mostly though, so I guess that's a good sign. I liked the final big bastard show down near the end and then the shocking actual ending.
And even though his character was utterly horrible I love seeing Omori Nao in anything at all these days so that was good for me. I really need to review Hagetaka and get some great shots of him in physio rehab. He was so cool.
But yeah anyway, this particular show I think they could have done a little bit more with, but never the less I don't think it was a loss by far. It certainly didn't feel like anything new but hey if they can make 3 series' of Gokusen with exactly the same stories, characters and even dialogue, then I think we can handle the endless churning out of detective dramas that all feel the same.
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