Time to review something! Woo!
Behold my new icon! Which I'll have to redo at some point because the text is too small! It says "Hello. I'm Matsujun, and I'm really really pretty."
My reason for the pretty Matsujun icon is that I spent the day watching a J-Drama, and I'm now going to talk about it. Don't go pretending you're not excited, because I know you are.
Let's talk about J-Drama's in general for a paragraph or two, since I predict J-Drama reviews coming up again in the near future. Essentially, these are TV series' that go on for about 10-11 episodes, and last mainly for 1 season. They're like reeeeeeeally long movies, or reeeeeeeeeally short TV series'. They're generally aimed at teenagers and young women, and they'll generally contain some young Japanese heart-throb (like my beloved Matsujun (Full name Jun Matsumoto) up there. Although to be fair at 27 he's dangerously close to being a middle-aged Japanese heart-throb). As such, they're almost almost syrup-y sweet love stories with more cliches than you can poke a stick at, unusual somewhat feisty women that the usually dominant male seems to fall under the bewitching spell of, really REALLY bad theme songs, and some of the most pathetically small amount of sexy times that you will ever see in a televised medium. (seriously. most of the time you'd be lucky to get two kisses in the entire friggin thing, and the kisses are almost always incredibly lame)
I admit, I kind of enjoy these cliched J-Dramas (except for the next-to-no-kissing bit), but for a while I wanted to see a J-Drama that was more serious and explored bigger issues, as well as one that showed stars that I am starting to like showing that they're able to do more than stand around looking pretty. And at last, my prayers have been partially answered with the J-Drama Smile. All eleven episodes of this J-Drama moved me, very often to tears, and this drama revealed to me in no uncertain terms that people can both look as adorable as Matsujun and actually be talented in something as well (that something being acting, because Lord knows it ain't gonna be singing).
So, the pre-prep for Smile evidently involved Matsujun getting nekkid and entering tanning booths or spray tanning salons for quite some time (an mental image I admit I'll be tucking into the "to think of when life is getting you down" folder of my thoughts-drawer), because he had to suitably darken his skin to play Vito, a half-Filipino dude with a bit of a gang-type past now working and living with a family of food-manufacturers in Tokyo somewhere. Actually, to speak seriously about the skin-colour job for a moment, Matsujun is normally pretty pale (he's kinda darker than normal in my icon), and the skin-darkening worked really really well, because he did genuinely look Filipino. Vito has had a difficult past, mostly centred around his being half-Filipino in a country that is really pretty appalling when it comes to prejudice and discrimination, but he's working to change his life around, and he dreams of opening an international-type restaurant someday.
Then a bunch of shit starts happening, all sort of centred around Vito being wrongly blamed or misjudged or whatever else, because he's Filipino. He meets a girl called... Nama, I think. And they call her Nama-chan. Nama-chan's also had a pretty shitty past (her Dad was a corporate executive who ruined the lives of many, and the trauma from the media harassing her has caused her to lose her voice). She lives and works with the group of people, and she helps Vito out a lot with stuff and they eventually fall in love.
The crux of the Drama starts with an old acquaintance of Vito's (played by Oguri Shun, another well-known young heartthrob type) gets out of prison. This bloke wants to kill some other bloke both he and Vito know, and he eventually traps Vito in an apartment. Nama comes to try and rescue Vito, and Oguri Shun's character flips his shit and starts beating her up. Vito's obviously quite perturbed by this, but is handcuffed and can't do anything. Oguri Shun's character then uncuffs him, gives him a gun and tells him to go out and kill this other guy. Vito kills him instead, and he is put to trial. The death penalty is a likely possibility for him.
That's all the plot I want to talk about, because I don't want to spoil it for everyone. Instead, I'll talk about what makes this Drama so, so good.
1. The issue: Smile has a story. It's a good story, it's suspenseful (and by that I mean, boy, is it suspenseful), it's resolved well, etc. But Smile is also about a bigger issue, which is the issue of discimination and prejudice. Kind of a ballsy issue to explore in Japan. Whether the Japanese want to admit it or not, they are a racist nation. It's stupendously difficult to immigrate here unless you're at least half-Japanese, you're generally judged by your race, and if you look foreign everybody will assume that you know nothing about Japan, Japanese or Japanese culture (like, seriously, the amount of times people have assumed that I don't know a word of Japanese. Nine years of study rendered useless by having blonde hair...) Obviously, this being a drama, Vito's circumstances are overdramatised, but the really impressive thing was how little prejudices creep in to people's every-day lives. I was actually sitting there repenting for past prejudices I've had. They explore the issue with depth and a fair amount of pizazz, and I think that's reason enough to assume that this J-Drama is a cut above the standard.
2. The characters. I can't actually recall a time that I've been more impressed by a set of characters. To talk a bit about the back characters, you have the family with whom Vito lives (Mum and Dad, Vito's two mates who had once also been on the dodgy side of the law, Mum and Dad's daughter, who is an apprentice at a law firm, etc) who are all a strong family unit, and it was enjoyable to watch the family bits and not find them particularly cheesy or unrealistic (to be fair though, there was a bit of cheese).
Vito's lawyer buddy is interesting, and has interesting views on prejudice. I liked him, because he is clearly a smart guy, and yet he admits at one point to Vito that he has learned something from Vito's positivity and determination. He grows during the story as well, which was nice to see.
Oguri Shun's character is a nasty piece of work, but one thing they did manage to show was his vulnerability. It's difficult to show vulnerability while still being a total arsehole, but it worked, and this vulnerablity plays a major part in Vito's mindset, as it were.
Vito is amazingly complex, I think. The series is called Smile, because Vito's schtick is that he's always smiling (which totes works for me, because Matsujun's smile could light up a room, no joke), despite all of his hardship. He's a determinedly happy soul, but there's real hurt underneath, as well as a total understanding for how prejudice affects him negatively. In the first episode at one point he's talking to his family on the phone, and he asks "would everybody believe even a Filipino like me?" And Mum answers "we all believe you, Vito." I don't describe it well, but remembering that scene is making me tear up. I think Vito's fundamentally shy and insecure, because of his past and what's happened to him with relation to prejudice, but yeah, he tries. I fell for Vito a bit. He's lovely.
The character that really, really impressed me, however, was Nama-chan. I'm going to feel like such a tosser if I'm getting her name wrong, but anyway. I've always felt that, depending on the female characters' purpose, female characters in Japanese entertainment come in two categories. Either the quirky, headstrong protagonist that the bloke falls hopelessly in love with, or the pathetic, weak, insecure silent type... that the bloke falls hopelessly in love with. Nama-chan absolutely breaks these moulds, and I think that even western cinematics (which I admit I generally find more well-developed than their Japanese counterparts) would really learn something by taking a look at this character. Because what Nama-chan shows us, better than any other character I've seen, is that you do not have to be a loud, extroverted, confident person, to be fundamentally strong. Nama is completely silent for most of this Drama. She's not particularly extroverted even when she can speak, and I wouldn't call her particularly confident either. But she's so strong. She rescues Vito's adorable heiny on more than one occasion, and when she's in some kind of peril (you know, in hospital with food poisoning or whatever) she's still smiling her sweet smile, saying not to worry and that she's fine. She's more the pursuer of a relationship with Vito than Vito is (again, Vito's insecure, shy, etc), and at one point when Vito is refusing to see her, she constantly visits him, never giving up. She's truly a wonderful character, and unfortunately I can't describe her well, but I was impressed.
3. The acting. I'd like to call upon the acting of two individuals in particular, and they would be Oguri Shun and Matsumoto Jun.
Oguri Shun has apparently played bad-boy characters in the past, but I haven't watched any of those dramas yet. Before Smile, I saw him in Hana-Kimi, where he plays a quiet high-school boy with a lack of interest in just about everything, and in Hana Yori Dango where he plays the lazy nice guy in a group of four lads. The difference between those characters and this sick, twisted, angry, horrible creature that his character is in Smile, is pretty astounding. Oguri Shun pulls off this bastardly character really well. And during that moment when he has to be both an arsehole and vulnerable, he manages to portray that without looking like he's got schizophrenia. It's a great performance.
Matsujun kind of takes the coveted prize for good work in this Drama, though. I've seen Matsujun in Kimi ha Petto, where he's an adorable "pet" to this headstrong woman, and in Hana Yori Dango where he's the leader arsehole beat-em-up guy in the same group of four that Oguri Shun's character was also a part of. Again, the character of Vito is really different to both of these. The impressive bits of acting were the tender moments with Nama-chan, and the crying moments. In the tender bits there's never anything physical, because in J-Drama's that's punishable by law, apparently (sigh), but the looks they give each other, the hand-holding, the eye movements, the postures... it all works, and it's moving stuff. And the crying bits.. there's something about the sound Matsujun makes when he cries, I think. He's a loud cryer, and it kind of sounds like the world is falling apart when he cries. This works in Smile, because normally when Vito is crying it's because he's in a desperate situation. In the first episode, Vito goes into a record store, huddles in a corner and calls his family. They tell him they believe in him, and he's there crying as he talks to them. The scene reminds me of times where I've called my dad and started crying, and he's had to assure me that everything's going to be all right. The hurt, and the fear and sadness Vito feels is portrayed so well by Matsujun in this scene. Whenever I think about it a lump forms in my throat. Then around the end, when he's telling Nama that he'll love her for the rest of his life, it's a similar thing. In short, Matsujun really went for it here, and I think this is the best performance I've seen him do yet. I'm hoping, now that he's getting a bit older, he'll start to do more roles like this that test out his acting ability.
OK, so I'm getting really tired now. But in short, this is a fabulous J-Drama. And if you're at all interested in them, watch it. Seriously. You won't regret it.
My reason for the pretty Matsujun icon is that I spent the day watching a J-Drama, and I'm now going to talk about it. Don't go pretending you're not excited, because I know you are.
Let's talk about J-Drama's in general for a paragraph or two, since I predict J-Drama reviews coming up again in the near future. Essentially, these are TV series' that go on for about 10-11 episodes, and last mainly for 1 season. They're like reeeeeeeally long movies, or reeeeeeeeeally short TV series'. They're generally aimed at teenagers and young women, and they'll generally contain some young Japanese heart-throb (like my beloved Matsujun (Full name Jun Matsumoto) up there. Although to be fair at 27 he's dangerously close to being a middle-aged Japanese heart-throb). As such, they're almost almost syrup-y sweet love stories with more cliches than you can poke a stick at, unusual somewhat feisty women that the usually dominant male seems to fall under the bewitching spell of, really REALLY bad theme songs, and some of the most pathetically small amount of sexy times that you will ever see in a televised medium. (seriously. most of the time you'd be lucky to get two kisses in the entire friggin thing, and the kisses are almost always incredibly lame)
I admit, I kind of enjoy these cliched J-Dramas (except for the next-to-no-kissing bit), but for a while I wanted to see a J-Drama that was more serious and explored bigger issues, as well as one that showed stars that I am starting to like showing that they're able to do more than stand around looking pretty. And at last, my prayers have been partially answered with the J-Drama Smile. All eleven episodes of this J-Drama moved me, very often to tears, and this drama revealed to me in no uncertain terms that people can both look as adorable as Matsujun and actually be talented in something as well (that something being acting, because Lord knows it ain't gonna be singing).
So, the pre-prep for Smile evidently involved Matsujun getting nekkid and entering tanning booths or spray tanning salons for quite some time (an mental image I admit I'll be tucking into the "to think of when life is getting you down" folder of my thoughts-drawer), because he had to suitably darken his skin to play Vito, a half-Filipino dude with a bit of a gang-type past now working and living with a family of food-manufacturers in Tokyo somewhere. Actually, to speak seriously about the skin-colour job for a moment, Matsujun is normally pretty pale (he's kinda darker than normal in my icon), and the skin-darkening worked really really well, because he did genuinely look Filipino. Vito has had a difficult past, mostly centred around his being half-Filipino in a country that is really pretty appalling when it comes to prejudice and discrimination, but he's working to change his life around, and he dreams of opening an international-type restaurant someday.
Then a bunch of shit starts happening, all sort of centred around Vito being wrongly blamed or misjudged or whatever else, because he's Filipino. He meets a girl called... Nama, I think. And they call her Nama-chan. Nama-chan's also had a pretty shitty past (her Dad was a corporate executive who ruined the lives of many, and the trauma from the media harassing her has caused her to lose her voice). She lives and works with the group of people, and she helps Vito out a lot with stuff and they eventually fall in love.
The crux of the Drama starts with an old acquaintance of Vito's (played by Oguri Shun, another well-known young heartthrob type) gets out of prison. This bloke wants to kill some other bloke both he and Vito know, and he eventually traps Vito in an apartment. Nama comes to try and rescue Vito, and Oguri Shun's character flips his shit and starts beating her up. Vito's obviously quite perturbed by this, but is handcuffed and can't do anything. Oguri Shun's character then uncuffs him, gives him a gun and tells him to go out and kill this other guy. Vito kills him instead, and he is put to trial. The death penalty is a likely possibility for him.
That's all the plot I want to talk about, because I don't want to spoil it for everyone. Instead, I'll talk about what makes this Drama so, so good.
1. The issue: Smile has a story. It's a good story, it's suspenseful (and by that I mean, boy, is it suspenseful), it's resolved well, etc. But Smile is also about a bigger issue, which is the issue of discimination and prejudice. Kind of a ballsy issue to explore in Japan. Whether the Japanese want to admit it or not, they are a racist nation. It's stupendously difficult to immigrate here unless you're at least half-Japanese, you're generally judged by your race, and if you look foreign everybody will assume that you know nothing about Japan, Japanese or Japanese culture (like, seriously, the amount of times people have assumed that I don't know a word of Japanese. Nine years of study rendered useless by having blonde hair...) Obviously, this being a drama, Vito's circumstances are overdramatised, but the really impressive thing was how little prejudices creep in to people's every-day lives. I was actually sitting there repenting for past prejudices I've had. They explore the issue with depth and a fair amount of pizazz, and I think that's reason enough to assume that this J-Drama is a cut above the standard.
2. The characters. I can't actually recall a time that I've been more impressed by a set of characters. To talk a bit about the back characters, you have the family with whom Vito lives (Mum and Dad, Vito's two mates who had once also been on the dodgy side of the law, Mum and Dad's daughter, who is an apprentice at a law firm, etc) who are all a strong family unit, and it was enjoyable to watch the family bits and not find them particularly cheesy or unrealistic (to be fair though, there was a bit of cheese).
Vito's lawyer buddy is interesting, and has interesting views on prejudice. I liked him, because he is clearly a smart guy, and yet he admits at one point to Vito that he has learned something from Vito's positivity and determination. He grows during the story as well, which was nice to see.
Oguri Shun's character is a nasty piece of work, but one thing they did manage to show was his vulnerability. It's difficult to show vulnerability while still being a total arsehole, but it worked, and this vulnerablity plays a major part in Vito's mindset, as it were.
Vito is amazingly complex, I think. The series is called Smile, because Vito's schtick is that he's always smiling (which totes works for me, because Matsujun's smile could light up a room, no joke), despite all of his hardship. He's a determinedly happy soul, but there's real hurt underneath, as well as a total understanding for how prejudice affects him negatively. In the first episode at one point he's talking to his family on the phone, and he asks "would everybody believe even a Filipino like me?" And Mum answers "we all believe you, Vito." I don't describe it well, but remembering that scene is making me tear up. I think Vito's fundamentally shy and insecure, because of his past and what's happened to him with relation to prejudice, but yeah, he tries. I fell for Vito a bit. He's lovely.
The character that really, really impressed me, however, was Nama-chan. I'm going to feel like such a tosser if I'm getting her name wrong, but anyway. I've always felt that, depending on the female characters' purpose, female characters in Japanese entertainment come in two categories. Either the quirky, headstrong protagonist that the bloke falls hopelessly in love with, or the pathetic, weak, insecure silent type... that the bloke falls hopelessly in love with. Nama-chan absolutely breaks these moulds, and I think that even western cinematics (which I admit I generally find more well-developed than their Japanese counterparts) would really learn something by taking a look at this character. Because what Nama-chan shows us, better than any other character I've seen, is that you do not have to be a loud, extroverted, confident person, to be fundamentally strong. Nama is completely silent for most of this Drama. She's not particularly extroverted even when she can speak, and I wouldn't call her particularly confident either. But she's so strong. She rescues Vito's adorable heiny on more than one occasion, and when she's in some kind of peril (you know, in hospital with food poisoning or whatever) she's still smiling her sweet smile, saying not to worry and that she's fine. She's more the pursuer of a relationship with Vito than Vito is (again, Vito's insecure, shy, etc), and at one point when Vito is refusing to see her, she constantly visits him, never giving up. She's truly a wonderful character, and unfortunately I can't describe her well, but I was impressed.
3. The acting. I'd like to call upon the acting of two individuals in particular, and they would be Oguri Shun and Matsumoto Jun.
Oguri Shun has apparently played bad-boy characters in the past, but I haven't watched any of those dramas yet. Before Smile, I saw him in Hana-Kimi, where he plays a quiet high-school boy with a lack of interest in just about everything, and in Hana Yori Dango where he plays the lazy nice guy in a group of four lads. The difference between those characters and this sick, twisted, angry, horrible creature that his character is in Smile, is pretty astounding. Oguri Shun pulls off this bastardly character really well. And during that moment when he has to be both an arsehole and vulnerable, he manages to portray that without looking like he's got schizophrenia. It's a great performance.
Matsujun kind of takes the coveted prize for good work in this Drama, though. I've seen Matsujun in Kimi ha Petto, where he's an adorable "pet" to this headstrong woman, and in Hana Yori Dango where he's the leader arsehole beat-em-up guy in the same group of four that Oguri Shun's character was also a part of. Again, the character of Vito is really different to both of these. The impressive bits of acting were the tender moments with Nama-chan, and the crying moments. In the tender bits there's never anything physical, because in J-Drama's that's punishable by law, apparently (sigh), but the looks they give each other, the hand-holding, the eye movements, the postures... it all works, and it's moving stuff. And the crying bits.. there's something about the sound Matsujun makes when he cries, I think. He's a loud cryer, and it kind of sounds like the world is falling apart when he cries. This works in Smile, because normally when Vito is crying it's because he's in a desperate situation. In the first episode, Vito goes into a record store, huddles in a corner and calls his family. They tell him they believe in him, and he's there crying as he talks to them. The scene reminds me of times where I've called my dad and started crying, and he's had to assure me that everything's going to be all right. The hurt, and the fear and sadness Vito feels is portrayed so well by Matsujun in this scene. Whenever I think about it a lump forms in my throat. Then around the end, when he's telling Nama that he'll love her for the rest of his life, it's a similar thing. In short, Matsujun really went for it here, and I think this is the best performance I've seen him do yet. I'm hoping, now that he's getting a bit older, he'll start to do more roles like this that test out his acting ability.
OK, so I'm getting really tired now. But in short, this is a fabulous J-Drama. And if you're at all interested in them, watch it. Seriously. You won't regret it.