Keigo Higashino's "The Final Curtain~ The Crimes That Bind"

 Just finished the gripping and, at least so far, last book featuring Kyoichiro Kaga and the SHINZANMONO series by the incredible Keigo Higashino, THE FINAL CURTAIN this week! Concerning two seemingly unconnected murders which may have a link to Kaga’s past, this one was an emotional one which really had me on my toes guessing what would happen next!

Once finished, I wondered if they would be adapting the story into a special or movie, as most of Higashino’s works tend to do, (especially the Shinzanmono  and Galileo series, of which there have been many), and I didn’t have long to find out! 

I had forgotten that, while The Final Curtain had just come out in English this past December, the original novel of which it was translated from, “Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki”, had come out way back in 2013… and a feature film had already been made and released under the English title of "The Crimes That Bind" in 2018!!! How fortuitous for ME, and I wasted NO TIME grabbing it!!! Watched it over the weekend and BOY did I LOVE it!!

Our story begins with detective Shuhei Matsumiya (Junpei Mizobata) working a case involving a strangled woman in a cold and sparse apartment. They have no leads, but a murder of a homeless man on the riverbanks nearby which occurred at the same time tugs at his policeman’s intuition. Investigating both crime scenes, he just feels they are connected.

With his partner Sakagami (Kunihiro Suda), they begin doing to legwork on the case, interviewing  the co-workers of the deceased woman, as well as trying to track down the man whom the apartment seemingly belongs to. 

Following the tracks given by friends of the deceased, the path leads to a theatre where a famous actress-turned-director named Hiromi Asai (Nanako Matsushima) is launching her first big stageplay. She is the last person who has seen the strangled woman alive, but as she was here working on her play at the time of the murder, she has a solid alibi.

She seems to be cleared of any suspicion, but when Matsumiya notices that she has a past with his cousin, the genius detective Kyoichiro Kaga (Hiroshi Abe), he feels that intuition tugging at him again, and makes plans to talk to him as soon as possible!

A few days later, Matsumiya and Kaga meet up for lunch, As they are both family AND policemen, they share information that wouldn't be discussed under regular procedural avenues. But when the subject of the framed photo of he and Asai comes up, Kaga insists that he only met her because he had to teach some young actors kendo for a play she was working on, and that he doesn't really know her and has never seen her since!

Well, such coincidences do happen, and they are about to part ways. But when Matsumiya talks about a calendar in the room of the strangled woman with names of Japan bridges scribbled on each month, Kaga’s blood turns cold. And we are to soon find out why...

 

Kaga has has a rough childhood with a mother whom, though she loved him dearly, would sometimes go off the deep end into dark, suicidal episodes. Today we can recognize it as clinical depression, but back then they did not know what to make of her disturbing outbursts.

One day she disappeared from young Kyoichiro’s life, leaving his father to raise the boy alone and growing up never knowing why his mother fled or where she had disappeared.

It is only years later as a grown man that he learns of the death of an old woman by natural causes found in a sparse rented room whom turns out to be his long lost mother (seen in flashback by Ran Ito).

Already a police detective by then, he exhausts all his powers to find out what his mother had been doing and what fate befell her, however, all leads turned up empty. The only evidence in her room at the time was a calendar. A calendar with the SAME notes about Japan bridges scribbled above each month!

With this strange coincidence in hand, Kaga asks to be formally brought into the investigative team of the strangled woman, and with his reputation preceding him, is put in immediately.

He has to start somewhere, and decides to begin by chatting with Hiromi Asai the stage director, visiting her at the theater where she is working.

The conversation starts out friendly, but as he talks to her, things begin to feel out of place for the sharp Kaga. And as he and the team dig deeper into the case, Kaga will feel that not only is the beautiful woman involved in the murder somehow…but may know information about his own MOTHER and the key to his own PAST!

Led by Hiroshi Abe, this is a veritable ALL-STAR cast, with not only Nanako Matsushima, and Junpei Mizobata, but appearances by Fumiyo Kohinata, Rena Tanaka, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Tsutomu Yamazaki and others! They even got young actresses Marie Iitoyo and Hiyori Sakurada appearing in flashbacks as young versions of the Nanako character, a move that really tickled me!

MAN, this was a great adaptation to watch right after finishing the book- It’s one thing to read a novel and picture the images in your head, but when the story involves traveling to towns, cities and landmarks, it’s a wonderful thing to actually be able to SEE the places that Kaga and Matsumiya go to on their quest for the truth.

Very picturesque in nature, to see the surroundings helps immerse you in the story even more than just reading about it, and the visuals really knocked me out!

PS: One more thing the movie did that the book did not, was really give the series closure. At the end of the case, we find Kaga has decided to leave Nihonbashi, the town where he’s been stationed since the beginning, and during the end credits of the film, we see him visiting people from the original 2010 SHINZANMONO series, like Megumi Toshiaki, Anne Watanabe, Teruyuki Kagawa, etc, checking up on their well being! 

A really sweet touch and a nice send-off for the character, especially if this is, indeed, the final Kyoichiro Kaga book!

In the meantime, we've got the new Detective Galileo novel INVISIBLE HELIX coming out this December to wait for! Gee, will THIS book become a movie, as well? 

Only time will tell, but get Masaharu Fukuyama on standby just in case!!!

Roppongi Class おわり

Back in July, I did not think much about the first episode of Roppongi Class, likening it to a one-dimensional melodrama about the rich persecuting the poor, summing up my thought with these sentiments: 

"I only began watching [Roppongi Class] for the Yuko Araki goodness, and while she is very, very good in it, I REALLY don’t have the stamina to sit through another one of these “Corrupt People in Power Persecuting the Innocent” kind of dramas like the aforementioned "Hanzawa Naoki”… Unless this turns into some kick-ass movie a la “Fukushuu No Miboujin” where the persecuted parties are the ones with the upper hand and gleefully extract their revenge on the crooks, I’m probably going to pass on this one…"

WELL, fast forward to three months later, and Roppongi Class has delivered ALL of that, and MORE, making it one of the most amazing dramas I’ve seen and my vote for BEST of the SEASON! I’ve long said that what makes a good movie to me (or drama series), is the amount of scenes and passages that I just have to watch again.If there’s a drama that has lots of scenes that I like and want to rewatch, you can bet it will become a fave, and Roppongi Class has it in SPADES! This drama is simply OVERFLOWING with incredible dialog, gripping scenes and emotional moments!

Another thing I found wonderful was how DENSELY packed this drama was, so much themes, motifs and mini-arcs going on within its borders… I had no idea how many ideas they had ‘bookended” until, one by one, they all wonderfully resolved by the show’s last episode.

Not just story arcs, but the characters themselves- absolutely NO ONE was wasted in this show. Every character who is introduced in this show, from the Cops, Criminals, Businessmen and Con Artists, all of them “go” somewhere within the story, and I was impressed how they managed to tie it ALL up for a HIGHLY and WONDERFULLY satisfying conclusion!

Though in my first watch I noted how Actor Teruyuki Kagawa always played these powerful bad guys as to be almost typecast, I MUST say that as the show went on and I saw how much of the show's "stakes" hinged on believing the evil and POWER of the antagonist, I realized there were few actors who could carry such a HEAVY role with such command, and in it, he was BRILLIANT!!!

And I can’t finish this praising of Roppongi Class without GUSHING about incredible Yurina Hirate, the sole person whom, to me, was the absolute “heart’ of the show, and it was so sweet to watch her go from a flighty  and arrogant waif to someone who becomes the rock of the group!!!

I remember at the time of the first few episodes, hamanosilence said:

"Techi will probably be the Kataomoi Character here which seems to be the most interesting so far, even though the whole brat with an attitude is a bit too much in the beginning."

The “brat" thing WAS a bit much, but sure enough, this prediction TRULY came to fruition when she became one of the most vibrant and DAZZLING characters EVER, taking me for a LOOP and KNOCKING me OUT, as evidenced in my feverish GUSH about her weeks ago! I simply can’t imagine ANY other person playing Aoi!! (PS: Why in the world is Yurina Hirate called “Techi????”)

I originally watched this show in a smaller file format (hardsubbed by the amazing Citrine Subs team), but I am really going to have to get ahold of HQ file copies- This is a wonderful, wonderful show, one that I will be rewatching for years to come!

Enthusiastically posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com!