Ode To The Romantic Comedies of the Past

Kitagawa Keiko and Kusanagi Tsuyoshi in Dokushin Kizoku

 Oh Man, Doukushin Kizoku is such an awesome drama so far! I love, love, love it!!! I’m up to episode 6 and my initial feeling that this story seemed like a throwback to old fashioned romantic comedies wasn’t off the mark- the show is just FILLED with nods and references to the beloved films of the past!
  With music from such movies West Side Story (I Could Have Danced all Night) and the Wizard of Oz (Somewhere Over the Rainbow), the music transports you to those movies of yesteryear, and they’ve even got the sweet Audrey Hepburn tune “Moon River” (from Breakfast At Tiffany’s) as the show’s recurring interlude song!

Speaking of Audrey Hepburn, even the storyline of the stoic and proper Mamoru (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi) and the suave and dashing younger brother Susumu (Ito Hideaki) both fighting over the affections of humble poor girl Yuki (Kitagawa Keiko) reminds me of the 1954 movie “Sabrina” where Humphrey Bogart and William Holden were fighting over the dainty Audrey!

The characters in the show are so great and colorful- besides the main cast, I’ve already mentioned Renbutsu Misako, here portraying the cute and frustrated Sumika (LOLOL):

...but even Nishihara Aki as Yuki’s hippie roommate Saori and Hiraiwa Kami as Mamoru’s scatterbrained would-be fiancé are glorious to watch! BTW, it took me a couple of episodes to realize Yuki’s bossy and yet insecure immediate supervisor Yuta was played by Fujigaya Taisuke!

Ito Hideaki and Renbutsu Misako

Kitagawa Keiko and Fujigaya Taisuke

While chatting about romantic comedies of the past and present, Mamoru and Yuki's conversation goes from “An Affair To Remember”to“Sleepless In Seattle”, and one doesn’t need to be a major moviegoer to notice the significance of the Empire State Building snuck into the background on a market poster LOL!

And take this scene of Mamoru rescuing Keiko from a would-be attacker- I took one look at it and had to chuckle as it reminded me of the ending scene of “The Graduate” so much! And that’s just one of the many, many winks the show gives to viewer! For a drama about movies and moviemaking, they certainly are giving the audience a lot of food for thought!

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Deux Ex Machina

Rise Of The Machines: Kimura Takuya wi Kiritani Kenta

 *Possible Spoilers Ahead*... Just finished watching episode 8 of Sci-Fi thriller “Ando Lloyd”, and damn, what a kick-butt drama it IS! Colorful characters, an intriguing storyline that keeps you guessing, and some pretty awesome fight scenes too! While the tale of the “Sentient Robots who Surpass Humans in the Evolutionary Chain” has been told before many times in films from “2001” to “The Matrix”, this is the first time I’ve heard it told like THIS!

 Besides all the revelations in the last few episodes, we even had the first confrontation/clash with Super-Android Ando Lloyd (Takuya Kimura) and his mysterious ultra-powered arch-enemy ARX-IX (Mirei Kiritani), and OMG, not only was this first battle on the building rooftop as exciting as the epic first meeting between Kikaida and Hakaida in episode #38 of “Jinzo Ningen Kikaider”, it actually kind of LOOKED like it, too! LOL

Only two more episodes to go, and I’m totally on the edge of my seat trying to guess how it’s gonna all wrap up!

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They Came From The Future: Sci-Fi Shenanigans in "Ando Lloyd"

Kimura Takuya and Shibasaki Kou in "Ando Lloyd"

As readers of this blog know well, when it comes to dramas, I really love the ones that are more off the beaten path, the less I can predict of the story’s outcome while watching it the better, and MAN, they don’t come more unusual and UNpredictable than the latest Kimura Takuya/Shibasaki Kou drama ANDO LLOYD! Part Science Fiction, Part Romance and ALL-OUT robot-slamming ACTION, this was ONE show that had me on my toes guessing the entire episode!

Kimura Takuya as Matsushima Reiji

Shibasaki Kou as Ando Asahi

 ANDO LLOYD tells the tale of a genius scientist named Matsushima Reiji (Kimura) who has come upon the knowledge that he (and a lot of other Physicists, as well) will be systematically killed by agents who seemingly come from the far-flung future. With the most important agenda of protecting his beloved fiancé Ando Nanase (Shibasaki Kou), he uses his smarts (and vast knowledge of wormholes and time relevance) to create an elaborate back-up plan to keep her safe in the event of his demise- and what a plan it is!

Android Killer! Fukuda Ayano as Laplace

Kakizawa Hayato holds Oshima Yuko hostage

 Strange times are afoot as super-powered (and time bending) androids roam the streets set on eliminating the scientists on their “hit” list, and as Reiji tries to keep one step ahead of them, a savvy Police Investigator by the name of (Kenichi Endo) is on the case. He seems to know quite a bit about the goings-on, but what does he really know, and who are the shadowy superiors he reports to REALLY working for?

Endo Kenichi

Hiraoka Yuta

Finally time runs out for poor Reiji, and it’s here we finally learn of his master “insurance” plan to protect his wife- a “5-D” terminator-type “Executive Defense” Android with the same super-powers as his futuristic foes, and once he’s on the scene they go head-to-head with some epic battling!! Only problem for Asahi is, this android (named, naturally, Ando Lloyd, get it? AN-DO-LO-ID) has the same body and features as her late husband, an emotional obstacle hard for the grieving woman to get around!

Besides the Heroes and Villains of the piece, we also have  a slew of interesting friends and colleagues with Kenta Kiritani, Oshima Yuko and Yamaguchi Sayaka as supporting cast…

Oshima Yuko

Kiritani Kenta and Yamaguchi Sayaka

Additionally, we have a Beautiful, Mysterious Girl (played by Mirei Kiritani with giggling glee) who seems to be the sole character in the drama that knows exactly who is who and what is what…but who is SHE?! Also Honda Tsubasa in hilarious scene stealing appearances as Suppli, the “Repair Technician” Nurse who shows up to fix-up Lloyd whenever he’s damaged in combat or needs “updates” to his system…

Kiritani Mirei

Honda Tsubasa

Well! I’d better get back to the show- So exciting right now- I have NO IDEA what’s gong to happen NEXT!

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The Sexy As Hell Yang Jiwon

Yang Jiwon MAXIM Korea

  The October Issue of MAXIM Korea showcased B2M Entertainment Girl Group SPICA and had a pretty cool promotion where they had five variant covers of all the girls! Happily, just today I received MY copy in the mail, THIS cover featuring my favorite member of SPICA, the luscious Yang Jiwon in all of her sexy unbuttoned glory!

As you may recall, the only other issue of MAXIM Korea I purchased (featuring Dal Shabet’s Jiyul on the cover) ALSO had a pictorial featuring Jiwon, man, , how much more synonymous with Sexy can you get?  Those guys at Maxim sure know sexy when they see it!

Jiwon in MAXIM April2012

Funny, this realization of how damn GORGEOUS she is came about only recently- for the most part, Jiwon’s always just been that girl in SPICA with the amazing genealogy of having been in both 5GIRLS, (that legendary group featuring G-Na, Hyosung of Secret, Uee of Afterschool, and Yoobin of Wondergirls)…

 ...and the original 5 Member T-ara (with Jihae, now of duo Jevice, and current members Hyomin, Eunjung and Jiyeon) both in their pre-debut stages:

 With credits like that, you certainly expected her to be good, but in a super-talented group like SPICA, she really became “just one of the girls”, and in fact, when I was first getting to know the girls, I simply referred to Jiwon as “That girl that kind of looks like Yuri of SNSD” LOLOL!  Anyway, at some point I really began taking a hankering to her, and the more I saw of her, the more I realized how freaking sexy she was (yeah, I’m totally over-using this word, I can’t help it, that’s the only word to describe her), til she became my main obsession for the group. Then this new Maxim hit the stands and WHOA!!! You bet I was ALL OVER THAT!!! MAN, is this chick the **** or WHAT!

The rest of the awesome SPICA Pictorial Below:

SPICA MAXIM Contents and Foreword

SPICA MAXIM Narae and Juhyun, Jiwon

SPICA MAXIM Boa and Juhyun

SPICA MAXIM NaRae and Jiwon

SPICA MAXIM Bohyung, Jiwon, Boa

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Did I Mention Jiyul Was My Dal Shabet Bias?

Gorgeous Jiyul of Dal Shabet fame recently did a photoshoot/interview thingy for magazine HOMME, and taking one look at the sneak preview of the video, I immediately dove in to the Jiyul Goodness! I love Jiyul and would have watched this clip no matter what, but I must say that after seeing the opening clip which featured Jiyul in all her curvaceous cleavagey glory…

 

…only to find that the video itself was composed mostly of a sweetly sweater-clad Jiyul in a decidedly innocent aura...

 

 Well, THAT was a bit of a letdown! Where was that sexy blue dress? Where was the rest of the coverage of that gloriously busty pictorial? It was nowhere to be found, leaving me with this summation of the friends at HOMME who put the clip together:

LOL, aw, but it was still nice to see Jiyul again in all her sparkling eye-smiling radiance, hopefully all these recent appearances in the media are signaling a autumn return? One can only hope!

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