The very anticipated Going My Home by Koreeda Hirokazu, director of After Life, Nobody Knows, Still Walking, Air Doll and last year's Kiseki (I Wish). Out of his filmography, Nobody Knows is the best IMO, with After Life and Still Walking being pretty good, Air Doll being an interesting movie and Kiseki being a miss for me. If I were to describe his style, especially from his last three movies, I would say Koreeda's movies are like a constant flowing of a quiet stream and his aim is to arouse a certain kind of feeling in the audience.
The first thing that its obvious about the first episode of Going My Home is that it is very long. Clocking at 1 hour 40 minutes, it is basically a movie. Abe Hiroshi does his usual great acting, this time playing a father who is a useless boss in an advertising company who shirks his responsibilities. Yamaguchi Tomoko is the wife who is does food photography. The best part of ep 1 is Abe relationship with his family, especially his mother and sister played by YOU.
Kareeda's strength is playing all those regular conversations that you find in any family and somehow making it interesting. Though I find the pacing really slow with the story taking its time to get to Miyazaki Aoi's, I was glued to every word. Its not Nojima Shinji rapid fire verbal jousting but he conversations are more subdued and there are plenty of punchlines. Any dorama that can keep me from forwarding to the next scene is doing something right.
When we finally get to the revelation about Miyazaki Aoi's character I was disappointed not just because her being the half sister would be hilarious with more scenes of Abe's mom and sister using him as the middle man but also that the dorama seems to be heading into the 'cuna' territory. Seems like this is going to go into a mythical creature hunt dorama to invoke certain feelings or ideas, ala Kiseki as can be seen from the promo picture below.
I am skeptical whether that can make a compelling 10 episode story. I would like to see Koreeda succeed but doramas are about creating anticipation and payoffs. Great directing, great acting but first episode is too long and did not get me excited for the second. Can't give it a must watch but let's see what episode 2 brings.Very watchable if a bit long.
Can't wait for Double Face to be uploaded. I recognise plenty of shots straight from Infernal Affairs from the CM. Thought it was going to be a series but looks like its going to be two dorama specials.
