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feeling: Magic 8 Ball says "Ask again later"
listening to: ayaka - Okaeri
When did this become my J-drama review blog, anyway...?
The Quiz Show
It's dramas like this one that make me remember why I got into Japanese dramas in the first place. Not because this was the best drama EVER or anything, but because the world of J-drama never ceases to surprise me. With almost every new drama I see, I think there's no other story like it in the world. So many different genres and formats and stories and ways of telling those stories... and this series, yet again, was another such new experience for me. It was the first J-drama I've ever seen with half-hour episodes (matching the format of its theme, which is, as the title indicates, a gameshow called The Quiz Show), as well as the first psychological suspense drama I've ever seen. Yes, psychological suspense. That means HOLY CRAP THAT WAS ONE TWISTED TV SHOW.
The gameshow at the center of the drama, The Quiz Show, seems simple enough. It's sort of like a mini Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - the contestant wins the big money prize if he answers 7 questions correctly, and he can trade that prize for the chance to answer an 8th question, for which the prize is the granting of his life's dream. The questions start out innocently enough, but after 3 or 4, the host's comments and behavior start to change, and the questions become more and more personalized to the contestant's own life - until, by answering the last few questions, the contestant is cornered into confessing the details of some unforgivable sin he has committed. All of the contestants are people who put on good faces for the public but hide a terrible secret behind them; in fact, each contestant represents one of the 7 deadly sins - pride, gluttony, wrath, greed, sloth, lust, and envy. What's more, the host Tazaki seems cruel and manipulative in his methods of cornering the contestants... but when the cameras stop, we see him tossed into an asylum cell, curled up on his bed screaming in torment as he struggles with memory loss caused by some traumatic event in his past. It seems that he is the one being manipulated by another face behind the scenes, forced to pressure the contestants into exposing their sins... and somehow, each one seems to awaken another little piece of the memory he lost.
I really can't say any more than that without giving away the plot. Even after reading synopses, I had no idea what to expect when I started this series, and the psychological twists and one-of-a-kind presentation continually blew me away. And I can't imagine a more perfect actor to play the host than Katagiri Jin. I had no idea who he was before and still don't know him from anywhere else, but he molded amazingly well into all of the moods and settings and emotions experienced by Tazaki. The dark, heavy, rock-oriented soundtrack was perfect too. Highly recommended series for anyone who likes dark-and-twisted-without-being-gruesome-or-violent stuff.
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dragged from Becky's stream of consciousness at 4/19/2009 06:23:00 PM
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