super random uber belated comment on Saigo no Yakusoku
I am re-watching Saigo no Yakusoku as a way to distract myself from writing my paper, writing my other paper, preparing my presentation, preparing my other presentation and filing my taxes *big smile*
I am nearing the end, but I have to say, this story is so good and interesting until you find out who the culprit is. It's really too bad. First off, I don't like the idea of adding a sixth member to the Arashi group. We don't know him and we don't care about him, so we can't really sympathize with Arashi in their pain. It really should have been that there were 5 and one was killed and now there are four. Like, have Oh-chan be the one who died. Can you imagine how much more heartbreaking it would have been if Ohno was the one this all revolved around? We can imagine how painful and wrong it would feel for Arashi to be 4, without Ohno. Sure, it would have meant that Ohno would have had no part in the actual drama, but I think it would have made a much better plot. Then again, this was a special drama to celebrate Arashi's 10th year anniversary, so I guess it is all-important that all five play a role. But why celebrate such a momentous occasion with such a flimsy plot?
Second, this is a legal point, but this all centers around the company president not knowing about the side effects of the drug. First off, it is highly implausible that a rational actor would have made the choice to sell the drug without government approval to patients that he knows will DIE if they take it. I mean, what benefit is there to that? If the side effect is as harsh as DEATH, and the injury isn't latent (both Arashi's captain and that woman's father died while taking the drug, not years after), then it would have been really easy to see that the drug was the one causing the side effect and that the side effect was not trivial. that kind of bad press, not to mention illegal activity, would not be beneficial for a company. So it would have made much more sense for the president to sell it with a warning for those who had a liver problem. A more realistic situation would have been a side-effect that is latent but lethal when the drug is taken over a long time. Like, the captain could have had some condition that required medication since he has 10 or something, and the drug was slowly harming him but in a way that didn't manifest to the patient, and he could have died when he was 17 or so (last year of high school, as in the movie). It would be a lot more difficult to pin the blame on the drug, but that is how these cases are in real life. And it really could have been that the president (and the original manufacturer in northern Europe) had no idea about the side-effect. Sure, it wouldn't have made the evil vs good divide so black and white as it is in the film, but is that really what makes good story-telling? Wouldn't it be more interesting if it's more nuanced?
Further, even if we were to keep the plot as is, I must point out that a president can't just get off scott-free by denying knowledge of the harm of the products his company is selling. He has a duty to be informed about the side effects of his products, and if he didn't know that, then he is negligent at the best and reckless at the worst. Sure, because there is no scienter, he would probably not get as much punishment then if he willingly and knowingly harmed his consumers, but he would definitely not get off scott free. Obviously, I don't know Japan's consumer liability laws regarding pharmaceuticals and I don't know the details of this (fictional) case. But the legal conclusion would certainly have been more nuanced than "oh well if you didn't know, how can we blame you?"
Also, in the end - how did that cleaning van make it out of the building? Even assuming that Nino unlocked the parking garage door before he left the control center, this building is surrounded by police who are waiting to catch the terrorists. How could a van just come out of the garage, unstopped?
And how exactly did the police a) know that Arashi were the perps and b) figure out they would just be chilling on a random hill? Assuming one of the other characters (the president, the daughter, the female employee or Nino's boss) told the police who the perps were, how did they know where they were heading? Did Arashi tell them this too? That seems like it would be helping the police a bit TOO much, no?
Some other random notes:
- it's cool that if you watch the movie knowing that Arashi is the perp, you can actually figure out who is talking even when they are using the voice changers. This was especially true of Oh-chan in the scene where they confront the President and reveal themselves.
- i am claustrophobic so watching all of the scenes of people crawling around in the ducts freaked me out lol.
okay, shit, i am so screwed for my papers and presentations. arrrrghhh
p.s. apologies for not writing for so long and then popping out of oblivion to write about something so old.
I am nearing the end, but I have to say, this story is so good and interesting until you find out who the culprit is. It's really too bad. First off, I don't like the idea of adding a sixth member to the Arashi group. We don't know him and we don't care about him, so we can't really sympathize with Arashi in their pain. It really should have been that there were 5 and one was killed and now there are four. Like, have Oh-chan be the one who died. Can you imagine how much more heartbreaking it would have been if Ohno was the one this all revolved around? We can imagine how painful and wrong it would feel for Arashi to be 4, without Ohno. Sure, it would have meant that Ohno would have had no part in the actual drama, but I think it would have made a much better plot. Then again, this was a special drama to celebrate Arashi's 10th year anniversary, so I guess it is all-important that all five play a role. But why celebrate such a momentous occasion with such a flimsy plot?
Second, this is a legal point, but this all centers around the company president not knowing about the side effects of the drug. First off, it is highly implausible that a rational actor would have made the choice to sell the drug without government approval to patients that he knows will DIE if they take it. I mean, what benefit is there to that? If the side effect is as harsh as DEATH, and the injury isn't latent (both Arashi's captain and that woman's father died while taking the drug, not years after), then it would have been really easy to see that the drug was the one causing the side effect and that the side effect was not trivial. that kind of bad press, not to mention illegal activity, would not be beneficial for a company. So it would have made much more sense for the president to sell it with a warning for those who had a liver problem. A more realistic situation would have been a side-effect that is latent but lethal when the drug is taken over a long time. Like, the captain could have had some condition that required medication since he has 10 or something, and the drug was slowly harming him but in a way that didn't manifest to the patient, and he could have died when he was 17 or so (last year of high school, as in the movie). It would be a lot more difficult to pin the blame on the drug, but that is how these cases are in real life. And it really could have been that the president (and the original manufacturer in northern Europe) had no idea about the side-effect. Sure, it wouldn't have made the evil vs good divide so black and white as it is in the film, but is that really what makes good story-telling? Wouldn't it be more interesting if it's more nuanced?
Further, even if we were to keep the plot as is, I must point out that a president can't just get off scott-free by denying knowledge of the harm of the products his company is selling. He has a duty to be informed about the side effects of his products, and if he didn't know that, then he is negligent at the best and reckless at the worst. Sure, because there is no scienter, he would probably not get as much punishment then if he willingly and knowingly harmed his consumers, but he would definitely not get off scott free. Obviously, I don't know Japan's consumer liability laws regarding pharmaceuticals and I don't know the details of this (fictional) case. But the legal conclusion would certainly have been more nuanced than "oh well if you didn't know, how can we blame you?"
Also, in the end - how did that cleaning van make it out of the building? Even assuming that Nino unlocked the parking garage door before he left the control center, this building is surrounded by police who are waiting to catch the terrorists. How could a van just come out of the garage, unstopped?
And how exactly did the police a) know that Arashi were the perps and b) figure out they would just be chilling on a random hill? Assuming one of the other characters (the president, the daughter, the female employee or Nino's boss) told the police who the perps were, how did they know where they were heading? Did Arashi tell them this too? That seems like it would be helping the police a bit TOO much, no?
Some other random notes:
- it's cool that if you watch the movie knowing that Arashi is the perp, you can actually figure out who is talking even when they are using the voice changers. This was especially true of Oh-chan in the scene where they confront the President and reveal themselves.
- i am claustrophobic so watching all of the scenes of people crawling around in the ducts freaked me out lol.
okay, shit, i am so screwed for my papers and presentations. arrrrghhh
p.s. apologies for not writing for so long and then popping out of oblivion to write about something so old.