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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Love, Revenge, and Redemption with "Take Five"

  Just started watching the new series TAKE FIVE, an intriguing mystery/crime drama featuring an All-Star cast including Karasawa Toshiaki, Matsuyuki Yasuko, Matsuzaki Tori, and Inagaki Goro, surrounding the exploits of a  legendary Crime Team called “Take Five” and the Police Inspector who vows to take them down!
Karasawa Toshiaki as Homura Masayoshi
Matsuyuki Yasuko as Sasahara Rui
Matsuzaka Tori as Niimi Haruto
Inagaki Goro as Iwatsuki Kai
The story begins where it ends, with Toshiaki Karasawa on the rooftop of a large corporation building fleeing the scene of a robbery, and as the security police arrive, we see an unconscious Yasuko Matsuyuki laying on the ground in front of him. As the cornered Karasawa leaps off the roof to his seeming death, two questions pop into our minds: Who ARE these people and HOW did they get into this situation? To find out, we rewind two weeks back…
Karasawa is a psychology instructor by the name of Homura Masayoshi, and when we meet up with him it is clear that although he once must have been a jewel thief or some sort, he has long since retired and gone straight. That is until a mysterious old vagabond woman finds him and shows him the picture of a priceless Da Vinci painting that for reasons unknown to us, he has some connection to. She then informs him that this painting is currently stored in the secure vaults of the Touto Bank, itself currently fighting claims of mismanagement. Would this be enough to bring the criminal out of seclusion?
Meanwhile, we meet Sasahara Rui, a tough-as-nails inspector who has only one rule, those that steal must be punished. "All theives are Evil" is her idiom, and when we first see her in action, she easily takes down a weapon-holding young man, letting us know right away that this is NOT a gal to be trifled with! Her job is about to become more challenging as she gets put in charge of the crimes committed by the just-out-of-retirement Homura and his newly reorganized team TAKE FIVE. 
Along with these two fantastic actors, we also have Matsuzaka Tori as a rascally associate burglar of Homura’s named Haruto as well as Inagaki Goro as a particularly shady detective with the Police Theft Division named Iwatsuki Kai who seems to have an agenda of his own. Although everyone seems to be off doing their own thing, their fates (and pasts) have more in common than they’d think…
You know how the movie Back to the Future had this really incredible thing where everybody was somehow connected by destiny, and it’s only as the tale unfold you see how they’re all bound together- well, Take Five is JUST like that- SO interesting to watch as the story plays out and you find out how everyone is connected! Can't wait to see what happens next!

PS: Watching Karasawa in action trying to break into the building, as the jazz music played, I thought to myself, "Hey, this song sounds kind of like Dave Brubeck." Then I facepalmed, for of course, it was "Take Five"!! Interesting version sung by JUJU in the drama, as well!
PPS: Was also pretty interesting to hear JYP K-pop group 2PM providing the ending theme song!
PPPS: And then there's Sasahara Rui's little sister to talk about, more on her in the following post...

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com