Zíza

A classic day at the Wangan precinct. A robbery, a former chief and deputy come to pry, and on top of everything else there’s Wan's wedding, which will be covered by Aoshima. Not enough for you? I'm not surprised. That's why they also added the hunt for an international con artist and murderer who may never have been seen by anyone. Or has she? This TV special really goes back to the roots of the show, it really feels like a slightly livelier two episodes of the series. The classic mess, chaos, but everything turns out all right in the end. The best part is watching what’s happening in the background, like when the main characters are having fun at the station, you'll have even more fun, maybe see Sailor Moon or something... For me, it was a necessary bridge between the third and fourth film.

This is disturbing. A film full of beautiful and ugly images, interesting and boring scenes, full of Nikaido Fumi's breasts, treacherous music... I’m not sure what I saw. At the beginning I was still enjoying figuring out a lot of things, researching about it, but as time went on I got tired of it and just watched the changing images without interest. Even though it's only 100 minutes long, I feel like I've been watching forever. In the end, Barbara is a town compressed into a single point. Dirty, beautiful, miserable, and sophisticated, a constantly repeating history.

I'd take more of these ordinary intimate films. Films on interesting and unvarnished topics that are worth talking about. How many people even know that vivisection was done on POWs in Japan during WW2? How many people even know what vivisection is? Those who've read Endo Shusaku's The Sea and Poison? A film that's easy to pass over, miss, overlook. But that would be a shame; both Aoi Yū and Cumabuki Satoshi give great performances in this intimate drama, the viewer understands their feelings and motivations quite well. It was short, it doesn't defend anyone, it doesn't really explain much of anything. It just is; and as such, I enjoyed it immensely.

I watched it all year long, an interesting idea that turned into something that dragged on and had such a horribly weirdly built-up tension that I got bored of it and really put it off again for a long time because it didn't motivate me to keep watching. Even though I was interested in who was ultimately responsible, it just kept piling up until I lost motivation and interest. In the end, there were a lot of holes in the plot and the acting was also not great. Luckily Suzuki Ryohei pulled it off well and Takeuchi Ryo did a relatively good job as well. The portrayal of the relationship within the family was also very nice. But the rest? So bland, flavorless...

This needs more episodes! I want more household tips! It’s got a refreshing comfortable feel that borrows from the vibe of The Way of the Househusband and does it very well. You sit there and think – of course, that's how you do that, of course, that makes total sense, of course, I've got to try that... This little homemaking tutorial goes by in a flash and you want more, even if you don't need the advice, because it's just cool.

It's a B-movie, an obvious B-movie, but a very expensive B-movie by Japanese standards. Plus it's overstuffed – it's got lots of characters, they all definitely have a lot to say, they're also from the manga source material, but they just don't fit into the movie, so they're just sort of there, all flatter than a Chinese swimmer's chest, and in the rapid sequence of events you have no chance to like them. Except for one, but he was simply given enough screentime, and was particularly well played by Miura Haruma, so his character felt much richer than the others. There's sentiment in this, of course, as it's Haruma's last film... but he was just a great actor. On the other hand, Suzuki Nobuyuki's character and his portrayal of it annoyed me terribly and felt like a fist in the eye. And then there's the action: the film isn't afraid of blood and is fairly to the point. From point A to point B and back again. Story-wise, it's choppy. It's on the low side of three stars, but I'll give it an extra one for Haruma. I think I'm turning into a cynic... A weaker 4 stars.

I watched this movie again after a long time and I liked it. Yes, it's long; yes, it's chaotic (anything from the series once called The Spirited Criminal Investigative Network couldn't have been otherwise); yes, it’s length may not ultimately have given it the impact it deserved, but it just made sense to me, even if others haven't seen it or were disappointed with it. I had fun with them again. They weren't different after all these years; even though they have different ranks they are still the same, their characters, the traits and goals of those characters are the same, they still hold to the same principles and tenets, and I think that’s great. It's not that the characters don't evolve and shift, they just evolve within their set values. Anyway, it was a mess that they eventually cleaned up with a broom and dustpan. But it's a mess whose effects will reach into the next episode. A weaker 4 stars. Not to mention that it really is the perfect movie to revisit after a long time. It definitely won't stand out if you watch it right after the other one – I’ve tried that.

A film with three explicit scenes, otherwise shrouded in innuendo. You have to read very carefully to get anything out of the film. It's not a breather, it's not a romance, it's a real drama. The acting is very good, but Narita Ryo clearly dominates. At the beginning we have absolutely no idea what to make of his character, in fact we rather dislike him, but as time goes on our perception of his character changes, mostly due to Narita's acting. It's not a story about the search for sexual orientation. In my opinion gender is not important in the relationship of these two, it's only important for the society that pigeonholes them based on it, which can cause problems and, as they say in Japanese, iwakan. But otherwise it's classic Yukisada – becoming mired in pathological relationships that there's definitely a way out of, as he watches the characters to see if they can get out of the morass they're stuck in.

I liked the format, less than half an hour per episode is ideal, because then the creators can take it at a hop without having to dig too deeply into the fates of patients or the aspiring doctors. Here we have four young people trying to become fully-fledged doctors, with different motivations, different experiences, different aspirations, and different cases. So as an audience, we are most engaged with Ameno, played by Shirahama Alan, and we go through his entire internship with him and maybe even grow somewhere. The series doesn't offend, it doesn't excite, but it has an ideal format and the acting is perfectly respectable. If you're in the mood for a medical setting that doesn't deal with rivalries between doctors and you don't want to devote half your life to it, this is perfect.

I watched the movie again after more than a decade and it's still such a cute one-off, nothing deep, just two strangers getting closer. It was fun, almost without the usual excessively sweet pathos, plus the central couple are likeable. My partner even watched it with me without grumbling too much or making his usual stupid comments. A nice easy viewing for a couple’s evening.