Romeo and Juliet (

Starring:
Takizawa Hideaki as Morita Hiromichi
Nagasawa Masami as Kihira Juri
Tanaka Misako as Morita Tokieda
Yamashita Shinji as Kihira Reizou
Miura Tomokazu as Morita Giichi
Takenaka Naoto as the professor

"Romeo and Juliet" is about a female college student and an injured young man she meets on the street. They fall in love, not knowing that the girl's police detective father is in the midst of a manhunt to find the young man's physician father, who is wanted for murder. Japan Times

What an interesting idea. Thankfully the ending was far more better than what Shakespeare had written. Everytime I think of that story or remember the 1969 classic movie version, I think of giving Shakespeare the old man some poison too.

Taking a more realistic, present spin on the classic gave it more of a real world view of how we can overcome society's grasp on true love and the harsh realities of fate. Sometimes we take too much to heart and make something so easy to overcome that we make adversity a mountain instead of a molehill.

Hiromichi and Juri not only were foresaken to not see each other but their parents also had a history to each other as well. In the present case, Juri was not allowed to see Hiromichi because Juri's father was investingaing Hiro's father. Intermingling personal relationships would have tampered his investigation. On a personal note, it would have made him look bad. Hiro was not allowed to see Juri because of the fact that it was Juri's father investingating and his mother didn't want her son dating the daughter of "that guy".

But in all, the story wasn't about their parents even though their selfishness is what caused the whole fiasco. Love is love and shouldn't be messed with for their own sakes. The love was that of their children who overcame their parents selfishness and adversity.

The drama wasn't spectacular but the fact that is was of current situations made it seem more tolerable and fantastic.

Takizawa Hideaki

I couldn't help myself with the torso shots....he's looking so manly now! Goodbye little boy and hello big man! Whew! *drool runs down from the corner of my mouth to the bottom of my chin*

Rough (Rafu/ラフ-2006)

Starring:
Masami Nagasawa ... Ami
Mokomichi Hayami ... Keisuke
Tsuyoshi Abe .. Hiroki
Takuya Ishida
Mai Takahashi
Manami Kurose
Yui Ichikawa
Norito Yashima
Maki Tamaru
Yu Tokui
Yutaka Matsushige
Eriko Watanabe

High school diver Ami (Masami Nagasawa) and swimmer Keisuke (Mokomichi Hayami) don't exactly get along. Their parents run rival sweets shops, and Ami is long-time friends, and maybe more, with Keisuke's freestyle rival Hiroki (Tsuyoshi Abe). Over time, however, hostile words give way to hesitant attraction, leaving Ami torn between Keisuke and Hiroki. With the national championship coming up, the young swimmers are competing for more than the title, but also their hearts.




What a sweet movie! Loved it. Loved Hayami-kun in some really tight, tight, tight, tight swimming trunks. *sigh....heartbeat excelerates* Whew! Is it getting hot in here? *fans self*

This movie is typical girlie fanfare. Hot guys, well-formed bodies, and coming-of-age triangle romance. What was strange....their was no kissing!!!! Agh!

Script could have been better. But....ehh. Hayami-kun made up for every bad moment of the movie which were rare. LOL!

Robokon ( ロボコン -2003)

AKA: Robot Contest

Starring:
Masami Nagasawa - Satomi Hazawa
Shun Oguri - Koichi Aida
Atsushi Ito - Yotsuya
Takashi Tsukamoto - Kazuyoshi Takeuchi
Kazuma Suzuki - Zushi sensei
Risa Sudo - Sasaki sensei
Tsuyoshi Ujiki - Yoshiyuki Hazawa
Hideko Yoshida - Obaba
YosiYosi Arakawa - Gohara
Sei Hiraizumi - Wakita sensei

This film is based on a real technological competition opened every year in Japan since 1988.

Satomi (NAGASAWA Masami) is a student of a technical college. She is a lazy girl and poor at both study and club activities. One day, a teacher tells her she is short of credits and needs to have extra lessons. More lessons will be killing her, but the teacher gives her a proposal that if she joins the second robot club of the college and takes part in the coming RoboCon with the club, he will accept that as the credit.“Robot Contest” or RoboCon is competed by one hundred and twenty-four teams from sixty-two technical colleges - two teams from each college. Every team consists of one robot and three members of crew - a captain, an operator and a mechanic. The captain of Satomi’s team is the club leader Yotsuya (ITO^ Atsushi), who has dropped out of the first robot club of the college because it is too tightly organized, but is worried about too few members of his club and his small gift of robot operation. The mechanic is Aida (OGURI Shun), who is a lonely genius - having enough gifts in technological fields and no cooperation. And the operator is Satomi, who has never operated a robot before. Their robot is named “BOXhund”, designed with outstanding ideas but still incomplete .

The matches are a single elimination tournament. Two teams compete to make their robot carry more objects to the respective goal within three minutes. The design of the robot is free while it meets some requirements - the weight, the size when it stands still, the power supply, the budget, and so on. The first robot club wins the preliminary matches and proceeds to the final stage like every year; the second robot club loses the first round like every year. But it is not usual that the second robot club is invited to the final stage as one of two teams by recommendation of the judges. They have praised the design concept of “BOXhund”.

Satomi encourages the other members to win the final stage. Her team’s miserable defeat in the first round has awoke her long-sleeping competitive spirit. But they have a lot of problems to face - the incomplete robot, Satomi’s poor operation technique, little cooperation between the members, and having only a few months until the final stage.

It is touching that the club members try to make their way to the final top. ~~crunchy

I downloaded this movie ages ago and completely forgot about it until last night when I was on the hunt for a particular movie. You know somedays you want a thriller, some days a comedy, and some days a romance.

I happened upon Robokon and got that jolt of "deja vu" then it was like "oh yeah!" I have this movie on my hard drive. Duh!

So this morning, I opened it up and away I went.

This movie wasn't the greatest of my Shun-kun movies. Adorable as ever and with his best bud Takashi even sweeter!

The movie, to me, starts out a little abrupt and messy. There wasn't a clear line of communitcation from to the movie to me. I kept going...:"huh?" It wasn't till the middle of the movie that it started to make sense. Or maybe the subs weren't clear enough for me. Not sure. I need to learn Japanese quick!

This was a great time killer. I'll probably end up burning this on DVD but it's not going to be seen anytime soon again. I'd probably watch this out of boredom.

Oguri Shun and Tsukamoto Takashi

Last Friends

Starring:
Eita - Takeru Mizushima
Asami Mizukawa - Eri Takigawa
Masami Nagasawa - Michiru Aida
Ryo Nishikido - Sosuke Oikawa
Juri Ueno - Ruka Kishimoto
Aki Nishihara

Last Friends deals with issues such as domestic violence, sexless couples, and other problems that people suffer today. The youths in this drama are all suffering from different issues. They come to live together in a share house.

Hair stylist assistant Michiru Aida comes across Ruka Kishimoto, her best friend in high school. Ruka is living in a share house with her friend Eri, and is aiming to become a motocross racer. Ruka invites Michiru to live with her in the share house, but Michiru declines because she has plans to start living with her boyfriend Sosuke Oikawa, who works at the child welfare division at the ward office.

The same day at the same store, hair & make-up artist Takeru Mizushima bumps into Ruka and picks up a cup that she dropped and broke. Takeru chases after Ruka to return the cup, but she mistakenly thinks that he's trying to pick her up. Ruka yells at Takeru and walks away.

Soon after this, Michiru moves in with Sosuke. She is filled with happiness when Sosuke promises he'll never leave her side, whatever happens. But one morning, Michiru wakes up to find Sosuke looking at her cell phone checking her text messages...



Okay, okay, okay. I finally broke down to watch this. Why, oh why, did I wait so damn long? I think this is the best Japanese drama yet. This drama is like no other. The love-quadrangle is fascinating in its own right. I really don't know who to route for.

I have to say it's hard to watch Nishikido Ryo play the villainous boyfriend, Sousuke. We've seen him play the sweet, innocent boyfriends in the past. So to see this is really disheartening but yet we see the realm of acting that Ryo-kun is able to portray. He has really grown up. *sigh*

Eita, well, I love him like a rabid-dog in heat. Everytime I see him, I melt. He has already established himself as an A-class actor. This time around his character, Takeru, has been sexually abused by a family member and he has a hard time of accepting physical affection of any kind. Some start to believe he is a gay male because he can't be around women physically. (Oh why did the fashion department dress him the way they did. They made him look too "girly". Ah well, he's still a hottie!)

Juri-chan, our Nodame Cantabile sweetheart, is not even relatively close to this character. Ruka is a sweetheart in her own right but in a different fashion. She plays a masculine female who is in love with her best friend. Her best friend, Michiru, is the woman being abused by her boyfriend Sousuke (Ryo-kun).

Two other characters fit in to the maze of friendships but are more co-stars that keep the dialogue going. The first episode was a slow go but once the show established itself...whoa!...I was hooked like catfish bait. So far there are only 8 English subbed episodes with only 16 scheduled episodes to be shown...so we are halfway there. I can't wait for the next episode.

Eita

This pic is from Nodame Cantabile...Mine Ryutaro!


Nishikido Ryo