Revisting "The Magic Hour"

 I initially downloaded the Japan movie “The Magic Hour” back in 2009 when I was high on love for Haruka Ayase and was desperately grabbing everything I could find of hers. including Oppai Volleyball, Happy Flight, Amemasu no Kawa and the excellent Cyborg SHE, enjoying them all!

When it came to Magic Hour, however, I was to find that the subtitles that came with it were either corrupted or incompatible with my files, and though I tried gamely to watch the show without subtitles for about 30 minutes, in the end I had to give up!

I DID notice , however, that Ayase Haruka’s role was only a very small part, perhaps due to her being still new to the scene, and thus I didn’t place a really high priority on seeking out subtitles that would work, and instead just put it on a backburner. It wasn’t until recently when I was going through and re-watching some of my old Ayase Haruka movies for a Drama Otaku ranking list I was making,  that I realized I STILL had not yet fully watched the Magic Hour and still needed to find subtitles for them!

Luckily we live in the wonder age of technology not only was I able to find the Magic Hour subbed, but these were terrific DVD rips, just fantastic HQ files compared to the old avi files I had tried to watch before! I was now set! Well I just finished watching it in its entirety, and as the saying goes, “It’s better late than never” because my GOSH was this movie GOOD! Oh, so much FUN with winsome humor and slapstick shticks, I haven’t  laughed so hard in such a long time!

The MAGIC HOUR telss the tale of a Bingo (Satoshi Tsumabuki) who gets caught with Mari (Eri Fukatsu), the mistress of the town’s underworld boss Tessio (Toshiyuki Nishida), and is all set to sleep with the fishes until he promises that he can hook the gang up with DELLA TOGASHI, a legendary hit-man that Boss Tessio has been dying to meet!

Only problem is, Bingo actually has no IDEA how to contact this assassin and was only lying to get his feet out the door. He tries in vain to find the man, but with time running out, it seems like he's out of luck!  But when he happens to spy a film crew shooting down the street, he has a revelation: NO ONE knows what this guy Della Togashi dude looks like, and figures he can just HIRE someone to PRETEND to be the man! 

They set their sights on a down-and-out stand-in actor named Murata Taiki  (Koichi Sato) to play the role of the assassin Della Togashi. Naturally an actor wouldn’t accept such a dangerous role, and the only way Bingo can get him to cooperate is to trick him into thinking he’s working on an ACTUAL movie! 

By pretending to be a hotshot director, Bingo convinces him that the fantastic new movie will be him playing a hitman for Don Tessio, with no script and completely on the fly ad-libbing! At first Murata balks at such a plan, but eventually comes around as it's the only gig he's got!

Seems sure to fail, and everyone is skeptical that they can pull this off, especially Mari, who is incensed to have to play along with this farce! But so passionate is Murata with his ‘role” that he convinces the Don, the Gang, and even those around him, that he might actually be the real deal!

Even as things are running smoothly things are SURE to come crashing down sooner or later, and when it does, it will take all their talents, savvy, and movie-making skills to get themselves out of it! 

A fun, entertaining show set in that magical wonderland of movie-making, and as they run around movie sets and filming, we see nice little homages to Hollywood featuring fun cameos from such stars as Nakai Kiichi, Amami Yuki, Suzuki Kyoka, Tanihara Shosuke and even Karasawa Toshiaki!

And BTW, I downloaded this movie primarily for my love of Ayase Haruka, but what I wasn't prepared for was how doggone ADORABLE Eri Fukatsu was as the sassy and selfish Mari, my GOSH, she stole very scene she was in!! SUCH a CUTIE!!!

What a wonderful movie to watch over the weekend! So glad that I was finally able to give this fine film the proper attention it deserves!!!!

BT,  looking at the imdb page for The Magic Hour, the poster reminded me so much of the cover art for the fantastic Keigo Higashino story "Miracles of the Namiya General Store"(which I wrote about here), and it occurred to me how smilar in "feel" these two books had. Sweet, Winsome, and full of heart, these both were stories that made you feel good and feel like a kid again!

Come to think of it, Toshiyuki Nishida was in the movie version of Namiya General Store, too!

Calling Dr. Kevorkian: Go Ayano and Keiko Kitagawa on the Case in "Dr. Death no Isan: Black File"

Ayano Go and Kitagawa Keiko in Dr. Death no Isan

Very thought provoking standalone movie (which somehow feels like part of a longer series) from 2020,  dealing with the subject of the assisted suicide/dying with dignity debate. The film follows two detectives, Inukai Hayato (Go Ayano) and Takachiho Asuka (Kitagawa Keiko) when, following up on a regular death from cancer, hears from a child that the deceased was visited by a mysterious man just hours before his passing.

When interviewing the widow, she denies any foul play and says that her husband passed naturally from the cancer. But a seized video camera provides footage confirming the child's story: There WERE visitors beforehand, a snow-white haired doctor and silent nurse.

Faced with this proof, the widow comes clean. She was indeed visited by a Doctor and Nurse, but it was by her husband's own choosing. Wracked with pain and the misery of burdening his family with debt building up day after day,  he sought to end it all, and thus called upon the man called Dr. Death, who arrived and, with mercy, gave him a lethal injection to put his tormented body to rest.

With further pordding, the wife says she made the call out to the legendary doctor via a website where those with terminal illnesses can make a plea for a visit from the Doctor and be put out of their pain.

Tracking down guests who have put in requests on the website, Inukai and Takachiho find no less than five other such mercy killings, and when they pay visits to the survivors,  they only have gratitude for the mysterious doctor, and see him as a savior.

This is problematic for the duo as they see this "Doctor" as nothing more than a specialized serial killer, and the subject is particularly troubling for Detective Inukai, who himself has a young daughter battling a seemingly terminal illness. He would NEVER want his daughter to choose  a suicidal death, and cannot imagine how the other families can live with themselves for letting their loved ones go in such a fashion.

Bedridden, weak and suffering, as time goes on and the guilt of financial burden builds up, even Iunkai's daughter wonders if it might be best for all is she were to take the 'easy" way out. And when Dr. Death hears of Inukai's daughter's possible request, it it more imperative than ever that the Detective duo catch him before he can contact his daughter! A psychological cat-and-mouse game begins...

This was really a great movie, and I really liked not just the story and its ideas, but the characters of Inukai and Takachicho. I mentioned earlier, but this fim seems like part of a series as the roles seem pretty well-established even from the very beginning, as if we're supposed to know who they are already.

Smart, quick thinking and totally cool,  these we character you loved seeing in action, whether tracking down the killers or even just grousing at the bar about their personal problems.

Would LOVE to see more movies with these two!!!

Taking on "Doctor X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon" at Last!

Ryoko Yonekura as the titular Dr.X/Michiko Daimon

 After a good 10+ years on, I’m FINALLY tuning in to the long-running “Doctor X” Series, and many would say it’s about time!  For some unknown reason or another, I've always been slightly off-put by actress Ryoko Yonekura, which is odd since I’ve liked her in just about every drama I’ve seen her in- (especially Seikei Bijin which is a big fave)- Maybe it was being constantly told by overzealous fans how cool, beautiful, and badass she was, but somehow it got to the point where every time I saw a new show with Yonekura, I’d think, “Meh, not her again…”

Such was my frame of mind when her new series “Doctor X: Surgeon Michiko Daimon” debuted in 2012. Seeing her in yet another “Cool Beauty who is also a Badass” role, I immediately passed on it, and even as the show became more and more prolific over the years and harder to ignore, I’ve still resisted checking it out!

It was only in recent years, after falling in love with similar medical shows featuring standoffish “I Never Fail” Surgeons, like in “Get Ready”, “Dr. Chocolate” and most notably of all, the Wakana Matsumoto “Dr. Asura” (which REALLY seemed like a Dr.X clone) , that I felt it was time to give the ORIGINAL drama a try!

Looking it up, I have to say that even though I’ve known that was a long-running series, I was still a little surprised to find that DoctorX had SEVEN seasons, plus special, movie, and even spinoff series, and while I had no intention of watching ‘em ALL, I did ultimately decide to give the first season a chance!

Well, the character of “Michiko Daimon” was indeed a real Ryoko Yonekura prototype for sure, but I GOTTA say, I was entertained from the VERY beginning and had to laugh at all the entirely comic-like arrogance she showed, even as she dazzled with her amazing operating-room orchestrations!

Each episode was as good as the one before, and soon I even began to anticipate coming home from work and watching the next episode, as if I was watching it in “real time”, and by the halfway mark found I really adored this character, fantastic as she may be! 

The show got better and better as it went on, and I gotta tell you, the final episode arc was as gripping and EXCITING as anything I’d ever seen-VERY powerful and dramatic, I was on the edge of my seat it was so damn GOOD!!!

Sure, all the usual medical drama tropes are here- the confrontational patients, the argumentative and stand-offish other doctors (Masanobu Katsumura, Kosuke Suzuki) , the wide-eyed newbie who looks on in awe (Kei Tanaka)…the seasoned veteran who slowly sides with the hero's methods and becomes a silent partner of sorts (Yuki Uchida)....

...and of COURSE, the corrupt Hospital Board of Directors! Yes, EVERY Hospital drama MUST have corrupt Board of Directors, and as a rule, must eat steak at meetings - J-Dramas ALWAYS have the rich and corrupt eating steak to show how greedy and selfish they are!

YES, the drama is full of cliches and a heap of predictability too...But yet somehow it all WORKS, in no small part due to the efforts of Ryoko Yonekura whom I grudgingly admit really has the charisma to pull off the hard headed outspoken narcissistic genius Daimon Michiko into a likable character and makes you root for her and cheer her on to succeed! This is a STELLAR vehicle which seems just made for her; to paraphrase director Jack Wolz in the Godfather- "The part is perfect for her- It'll make her a big star!"  And indeed, it does... I really, really loved Doctor X! 

Funny, reading up on fan opinions online afterwards, I found people’s ideas of which were the good seasons and weak ones really varied, with most citing season one as the weakest, with the writers still discovering who the characters really were, and some saying the later seasons lose its way into repetitiveness. But for me, MAN, if season one is the bottom and can only go up, then I guess I’ve just GOTTA see more!

Ironic that after all these years of avoiding this series, only NOW am I getting into it, right when lead actress Ryoko Yonekura is calling it quits on the series and begging off doing any more, wanting to do things outside of the Michiko Daimon role- the Doctor X Movie says it’s the “FINAL” and though who knows how much water THAT statement holds, it really seems I’m coming in at the last minute to the festivities! Oh well, better LATE than NEVER!

Now I’ve got some SERIOUS catching up to do…!