Utahime Review
Starring: Nagase Tomoya, Aibu Saki, Ohkura Tadayoshi, Sato Ryuta {2007}
Nagase Tomoya plays two roles in this drama, one set in the present (Koizumi Akira) and the other set in the 1950s (Shimato Taro). Akira's mother, who is a popular strongstress, tells him to go to a small town in the Kochi Prefecture to watch the last movie before its cinema closes down. When Akira arrives there, he ends up watching the movie & this is where the 'real' story begins.
The whole drama focuses on the movie that Akira is watching. It's about a young soldier who is found washed ashore by the Kishida family, and consequently has lost his memory in the process. Kishida Suzu (Aibu Saki) renames him as Shimanto Taro (Nagase Tomoya) after he is adopted as part of the Kishida family who runs the town's little cinema. Ten years has past and he still hasn't regained his memory, but continues to happily live in the town making many good friends, discovering a passion for movies and slowly falling in love with the Kishida family's youngest daughter, Kishida Suzu...
My review: Where to start? Um. This is a drama that starts of really slow and is rather plain, but its the type that eventually grows on you. Well, for me it did.
It revolves mainly around Taro and Suzu. There's a big age gap as you can see from the first screencap above. The first screencap is when the Kishida family take Taro in and little Suzu is looking after him. The plot is pretty straight forward. It's the typical brother-sister relationship that turns into something else when they become older. For instance, the second screencap is of Suzu making faces in the mirror. I think that she might've been wanting to try and impress/flirt with Taro but she didn't know how to do it. I might have to rewatch that scene because I can't really remember, but for most of the drama Suzu is constantly trying to let Taro see her as a woman and not a little sister.
Despite the drama being cliched, Nagase and Aibu bring their own flavour due to their natural chemistry when they act together Perhaps that's why they're still dating each other? (yes, petitelena I keep forgetting to tell you. haha)
It's quite endearing and cute because watching this drama is like remembering having your own first crush. But, of course it's different. Suzu and Tora live in the same house together and because they've known each other for so long, they even created their own dorky theme song and dance moves for themselves, going like this...
"Taro and Suzu taro-taro rin-rin-rin!"
The other intertwining story line would have to be with how Taro slowly gets his memory back due a certain event. I'm not going to say it because I don't want to give the spoiler away. No real variation in Nagase's acting in comparison to his other acting roles, but I'll still give him credit for how he portrayed Taro's character. Nagase simply works well whenever he acts out any character that suits him.
The setting is mainly situated at the family's theatre, Merry's bar or by the ocean. The setting doesn't really change much considering it's in a small town. The same would go for the people. The protagonists are often talking to the same people and, every now and again, there's gossip spreading amongst the villagers. I think this may have had been the reason why I didn't really like the drama at first because the acting scenes were always in the same place, but I got used to it in the end.
But like all stories, there always has to a problem & an evil guy. The person who takes this position? Croissant AKA Sato Ryuta. Yes, you heard me right. Croissant as in the French pastry. Pretty bizarre, right? Not to mention that Croissant is part of the yakuza. He acts all manly and tough, but when he 'actually' gets into a fight involving Taro beating him up...he throws a hissy fit and starts crying. I think that scene made me continue Utahime. I thought Sato Ryuta would act the really evil arch-nemesis, but his role turned out to be comic relief...especially when he sees Suzu for the first time and falls in love at first sight. His facial expression completely changes when he sees Suzu (as in he acts like a high school girl and giggles himself fuzzy) and I'd probably rank him as a crazy stalker.
Croissant's scenes were hilarious. I don't think I'll ever see Sato Ryuta the same ever again!
My favourite character, even though I'm most likely being biased, waas student-kun AKA James played by the one and only Ohkura Tadayoshi ;). His character basically stumbles/goes on a search to find out the meaning of his life since his girlfriend broke up with me. Hence, he finds the town.
He resides in the town & ends up being the worker servant to an old woman who owns an inn. Through Taro, he begins to have an interest for film and movies. Not to mention, he also gets excited over his favourite actor, James Dean, and adapts how he dresses..earning his nickname as 'James'.
From the pic above you can see the transformation from student-kun to James. HAHA xD I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the second screencap above. What's even more ironic is that ever since the fourth episode, he stuck to the whole 'James' persona with the hair constantly being gelled back every scene he was in. There's another example of his new hairdo in the gif below perving on Merry's legs...
And I added a couple more gifs below so that you can understand how dedicated Ohkura is to his acting career...even though he was getting sexually abused for the drama's sake. Haha.
Man, that's nasty.
Watch Utahime if
>> You'd like to see the cute chemistry between Nagase x Aibu
>> You want to witness Nagase sing Elvis' Jailhouse Rock in English
>> You want to witness Sato Ryuta go a bit a lot spastic
>> You want to watch Ohkura get bullied by the cast & not K8 for once
>> You want to see the friendship between Ohkura x Nagase
>> You want to watch Ohkura's fail moments
>> You like slow-paced dramas
Just from writing all that and the number of screencaps I've posted up, I guess that I did like Utahime after all. I should have downloaded all the episodes. For me, it started off boring, but as it progressed (probably turning point ep 3-4 in), I began to like it. Give it a try at least til episode 4 if you're thinking about watching it ;) *cough* jasj *cough* I reckon you can even get by with skipping episodes 1 & 2.
I really have to stop with all these drama/movie reviews. They go hand-in-hand with my procrastination, unfortunately. I really admire people who blog about each episode or movie they watch so in depth. I don't think I'd have patience to do it all the time.