![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"This is your final cut."
Jul. 14th, 2018 04:52 pmI'm a bit late with this, I still got a drama special to talk about next!! Excited about that. But first, I'll just briefly review Kame's drama, Final Cut.
I've always wanted to watch it ever since it was announced he would be leading but I was being stubborn about watching it in HD, lmao. Well, I finally got to it and watched it in about a day. Yeah, well, it was alright. Firstly, Final Cut's a number of things. It tells the story of Nakamura Keisuke's quest to seek justice/pay retribution to a certain television programme who falsely accused his mother of a murder she never committed. She was constantly hounded by the media during the investigation of the crime which after a period of time led her to commit suicide due to the enormous burden and strain faced. Twelve years later, after various preparations, Keisuke hunts down the people responsible by producing final cuts of their lives, he along with his partner digs up dirt on their personal lives and uses it to produce videos, which is sort of a dig at what they do given the nature of their jobs. The programme's notorious for manipulating the stories they find and presenting it as fact to the public despite the truth being distorted. Keisuke's method is pretty smart, since he relies on truth instead although he has to resort to unethical ways to do so but well, it's only fair given how malicious the media was to his mother as well as to other victims.
I love revenge shenanigans so this one was somewhat enjoyable given that there was indeed the former and to watch Keisuke/Kame so vindictive and hellbent on restoring his mother's virtue and name was a treat. However, after awhile it did feel episodic since he has a target in every other episode and the writing is rather formulaic. Keisuke runs a site for victims of the media where they voice their woes and he responds to a select number of them. The details are shared, Keisuke and his partner goes after the ones responsible and justice is more or less served. On the side, Keisuke also interrogates the ones responsible to find out more about his mother's case and the ones who decided to frame her as the murderer rather than catch the actual person involved. Turns out the police and the media are pals and it's a vicious web that Keisuke has to try and penetrate. Luckily, he's also a police officer so the bridge isn't that far for him to cross. I'll commend the show a bit for having certain stakes and ensuring Keisuke isn't invulnerable. The drama's pacing is good, imo, for 9 episodes. Keisuke runs into problems too and he needs help as well to clear his mother's name.
As a character, Keisuke fared pretty well. Personally, the bar for me is treating children well and he did that. Although Keisuke is unforgiving and immoral with his foes, he's rather pleasant with normal people and also has a conscience too. See, he's a bit of an ass since he actually two-times two of the leading ladies who happen to be sisters AND the siblings of the actual murderer. Yup. Messy! He falls for the older sister and his feelings intersect with good ol' conscience and it's some deep stuff. I guess? Lol. The romance is awkward but I did enjoy a bit. Typical stuff in a revenge story, c'mon! Good shit. They even share a passionate kiss and sleep together.
Well, did I digress? Anyway. I did like that the show explored the repercussions of media sensationalism and distortion. Its implications reflect the current state of the media in real life and the gravity of it, that the show took it seriously was appreciated. Though, towards the end, I felt the discussion became just another tool for further melodrama and the conclusion was pretty lacking. I think the show might've been aware of its shortcomings too since this was an actual line: "You're antagonising the media. The investigation team back then. Your opponent is an unyielding system and a green kid like you can't do anything about them." I thought this was a good line. It is. It's a good reminder for the lead. It's also a bitter truth that had to be said. I think though that juggling both the revenge side of the story + the social commentary on the media's effects on peoples' lives is no easy task and it showed in the last episode.
Keisuke was able to restore his mother's name and experience some extent of personal satisfaction as he was able to wash away the dirt spilled onto her name as well as catch the real murderer but I couldn't help but feel as a viewer, like, now what? I don't know if it was Kame's acting choices but it seemed that even Keisuke wasn't entirely satisfied. The media comes out unscathed, ready to sink its teeth into another family whose son is a murderer of a little girl and the cycle repeats. Keisuke gets his revenge but that's really it. At the end of the day, the sad truth remains that Keisuke is just one person against an unshakeable system. I'm not even sure if the bleak message was what the writing intended but I doubt it since the characters who were responsible for manipulating the public got scot-free and were able to smile as if nothing happened. The bigwig, played by Fujiki Naohito, had some sudden sob story introduced near the end although he's a stinking piece of shit and his despicable actions got a free pass. He suddenly owned a conscience and apologised to Keisuke + the public for the programme's media manipulations and eventually quit on his own. One of the sisters turned hysterical because Keisuke wouldn't accept her love and she stabbed herself to prove a point.. Yeah. The writing really didn't hold up. Like, iirc this was the show Kame learnt parkour for and the first episode showed some 'parkour'. The directing was hilarious with that, I gotta say. He barely used it though throughout the show, lmao.
BRIEFLY, my ass. I rambled, didn't I. I would've attempted to let this all flow nicely but it's not as if Final Cut was good. Well. At least this wasn't traumatic like Kaito Yamaneko was. I even got reminded of it in the last five minutes of the show because I literally thought they were going to pull the same shit the former did!! Ugh. I'll never get over that, probably....
I've always wanted to watch it ever since it was announced he would be leading but I was being stubborn about watching it in HD, lmao. Well, I finally got to it and watched it in about a day. Yeah, well, it was alright. Firstly, Final Cut's a number of things. It tells the story of Nakamura Keisuke's quest to seek justice/pay retribution to a certain television programme who falsely accused his mother of a murder she never committed. She was constantly hounded by the media during the investigation of the crime which after a period of time led her to commit suicide due to the enormous burden and strain faced. Twelve years later, after various preparations, Keisuke hunts down the people responsible by producing final cuts of their lives, he along with his partner digs up dirt on their personal lives and uses it to produce videos, which is sort of a dig at what they do given the nature of their jobs. The programme's notorious for manipulating the stories they find and presenting it as fact to the public despite the truth being distorted. Keisuke's method is pretty smart, since he relies on truth instead although he has to resort to unethical ways to do so but well, it's only fair given how malicious the media was to his mother as well as to other victims.
I love revenge shenanigans so this one was somewhat enjoyable given that there was indeed the former and to watch Keisuke/Kame so vindictive and hellbent on restoring his mother's virtue and name was a treat. However, after awhile it did feel episodic since he has a target in every other episode and the writing is rather formulaic. Keisuke runs a site for victims of the media where they voice their woes and he responds to a select number of them. The details are shared, Keisuke and his partner goes after the ones responsible and justice is more or less served. On the side, Keisuke also interrogates the ones responsible to find out more about his mother's case and the ones who decided to frame her as the murderer rather than catch the actual person involved. Turns out the police and the media are pals and it's a vicious web that Keisuke has to try and penetrate. Luckily, he's also a police officer so the bridge isn't that far for him to cross. I'll commend the show a bit for having certain stakes and ensuring Keisuke isn't invulnerable. The drama's pacing is good, imo, for 9 episodes. Keisuke runs into problems too and he needs help as well to clear his mother's name.
As a character, Keisuke fared pretty well. Personally, the bar for me is treating children well and he did that. Although Keisuke is unforgiving and immoral with his foes, he's rather pleasant with normal people and also has a conscience too. See, he's a bit of an ass since he actually two-times two of the leading ladies who happen to be sisters AND the siblings of the actual murderer. Yup. Messy! He falls for the older sister and his feelings intersect with good ol' conscience and it's some deep stuff. I guess? Lol. The romance is awkward but I did enjoy a bit. Typical stuff in a revenge story, c'mon! Good shit. They even share a passionate kiss and sleep together.
Well, did I digress? Anyway. I did like that the show explored the repercussions of media sensationalism and distortion. Its implications reflect the current state of the media in real life and the gravity of it, that the show took it seriously was appreciated. Though, towards the end, I felt the discussion became just another tool for further melodrama and the conclusion was pretty lacking. I think the show might've been aware of its shortcomings too since this was an actual line: "You're antagonising the media. The investigation team back then. Your opponent is an unyielding system and a green kid like you can't do anything about them." I thought this was a good line. It is. It's a good reminder for the lead. It's also a bitter truth that had to be said. I think though that juggling both the revenge side of the story + the social commentary on the media's effects on peoples' lives is no easy task and it showed in the last episode.
Keisuke was able to restore his mother's name and experience some extent of personal satisfaction as he was able to wash away the dirt spilled onto her name as well as catch the real murderer but I couldn't help but feel as a viewer, like, now what? I don't know if it was Kame's acting choices but it seemed that even Keisuke wasn't entirely satisfied. The media comes out unscathed, ready to sink its teeth into another family whose son is a murderer of a little girl and the cycle repeats. Keisuke gets his revenge but that's really it. At the end of the day, the sad truth remains that Keisuke is just one person against an unshakeable system. I'm not even sure if the bleak message was what the writing intended but I doubt it since the characters who were responsible for manipulating the public got scot-free and were able to smile as if nothing happened. The bigwig, played by Fujiki Naohito, had some sudden sob story introduced near the end although he's a stinking piece of shit and his despicable actions got a free pass. He suddenly owned a conscience and apologised to Keisuke + the public for the programme's media manipulations and eventually quit on his own. One of the sisters turned hysterical because Keisuke wouldn't accept her love and she stabbed herself to prove a point.. Yeah. The writing really didn't hold up. Like, iirc this was the show Kame learnt parkour for and the first episode showed some 'parkour'. The directing was hilarious with that, I gotta say. He barely used it though throughout the show, lmao.
BRIEFLY, my ass. I rambled, didn't I. I would've attempted to let this all flow nicely but it's not as if Final Cut was good. Well. At least this wasn't traumatic like Kaito Yamaneko was. I even got reminded of it in the last five minutes of the show because I literally thought they were going to pull the same shit the former did!! Ugh. I'll never get over that, probably....
