kokitty wrote:
Next on my turn off list will come as a shock to many.... Ueno Juri. I think her acting should be fine since she did okay in Nodame Cantabile which is the only and last thing i will ever watch of her. Had an encounter with her at a resturant last year, to put it simply she wasn't exactly in her best behaviour then. A friend who was with me then, works for Dentsu Inc, makes recommendations about celeb endorsers to her clients on a regular basis made a comment that struck me vividly " If you see a celeb who is popular, belongs to a strong jimusho which should have no problem getting her CM contracts but has very much lesser CM contracts in comparison to her less illustrous peers. You know that there is something wrong with her." Anyway with Ueno Juri, it boils down to a personal bias which might not have occured without my personal encounter but since it did happen, she's turned me off ever since.
I have no preference for Juri either way, so I'm not here to defend her. But that ridiculous quote is exactly the sort of thing I'd expect from a Dentsu employee. Dentsu is, of course, the root of all evil in Japanese marketing. That quote sounds like good sense on a professional level, but to extend it to a personal level is pretty shallow.
It'd be a lot more interesting if you had told us the juicy story instead of relying on a lame premise like that to get your point across.
Jeanxi wrote:Speaking of which, I never really understood why everyone thinks Kimura acts so well. I don't dislike him, but I am absolutely mystified as to why he has the reputation of an excellent actor. He seems the same in every role to me. I would much appreciate it if someone can explain what makes him a good actor (I'm not being sarcastic, I sincerely want to know if I missed something...). I agree that he is a very charismatic person, though

I'd agree Kimura doesn't really do much acting. The characters are mostly the same, but it's a character a lot of people (myself included) don't tire of seeing. I appreciate Takuya a lot because I know I'm probably going to enjoy a drama quite a bit when I see his name on it. That's held true for everything I've seen so far... be it a cryfest Beautiful Life or a political Change. For my money, BL makes 1LOT look amateur -- and Kimura has a lot to do with it. The only other actor I can say that about is Abe Hiroshi.
Lately, Tsumabaki Satoshi is on my nerves. I watched him earlier in Lunch no Jou and found his acting and character very weak. By the end of the show I really had no sympathy for him and thought he let down the directors with where they were trying to take the ending. Maybe I misinterpreted the show, but he just came off as a whiny character. I don't think that's what the directors were going for.
And now his acting in Tenchijin... as the lead... is incredibly weak. The show has lost all it's power since Kenshin died (this shouldn't be a plot spoiler since it's history...) and the only life left in the show comes from Tokiwa Takako -- who really isn't that key to the story. That's just pathetic. I think he has the ability to play supporting roles well, but it seems he just can't stand up to the fire when he's a lead and so I'm irritated with him.
I also don't like Hasegawa Kyoko. I've only seen her in Dragon Zakura, but I found her role in that pretty nauseating. I'm not sure if she over-played it or if that's what the directors were really going for.. but, given how her character was played, I found the ending completely unbelievable. Still a great drama though.