Nisennen no Koi (Love 2000) 8.2
Japanese Drama (2000)stars Miho Nakayama as Rieru Mashiro and Takeshi Kaneshiro as Yuri Maroev
(certain details such as names and titles may be slightly off, due to my inferior Chinese subtitle-reading abilities)
SYNOPSIS:
The TV series opens as secret agent/terrorist Yuri Maroev (Takeshi Kaneshiro) travels to Japan with his like-employed younger brother to kill their father, who has betrayed their homeland by giving away some sort of top-secret information.
[On a side note, I have deduced through my viewing of the drama and personal interpretation of Yuri's name that the country (which, if it is named in the drama, consists of Chinese characters I can't read) is something like Russia. Additionally, although I'm unclear about how exactly it works, the larger mission of the Maroevs is to end starvation in their homeland.]
Unfortunately, the younger Maroev's nervous behavior when going through customs attracts the attention of airport security, and the two escape from the airport and into the woods only by leaving several dead bodies in their wake. Officers shoot Yuri's brother, wounding him badly, and to save him from being caught, Yuri kills him, cutting off a lock of his hair afterwards. He makes his way to an apartment, where fellow agents Naomi (Fayray) and Kai (Mitsuru Murata) are waiting for him. His task is to break into some Foreign Ministry files to gained the required information to assassinate Maroev the elder, Naomi's task was to acquire, using her womanly wiles, the ID Yuri needs to get into the building, and Kai's task seems to be to contemplate his bowie knife with a malevolent smile while brutally and constantly reminding Yuri of the way his brother died.
Meanwhile, systems analyst Rieru Mashiro (Miho Nakayama) leaves a New Year's party early and goes back to her office, which is an enormous password-protected warehouse with a steel door that looks at least half a foot thick but curiously also possesses some floor-to-ceiling windows. While there, she receives a late-night call from someone she believes to be a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official named Nogami (but is actually Yuri in disguise), asking for help with some of the computers at the department. She is intrigued by this handsome, charming stranger who proves that he is a winning combination of strength and smarts when he rescues her from an elevator that gets stuck between floors with the two of them trapped inside. However, he disappears suddenly afterwards, and she is left holding a mysteriously wrapped object that belongs to him.
Over the course of the next year, they continue to come in contact with each other by chance, calculation, and fate. However, even as Yuri wishes more and more that it is possible for him to give up his way of life, Rieru becomes increasingly torn between concern for Yuri and loyalty to the government and the police.
DRAMA REDUCTION:
Can a man raised and trained to die in service of his country (and whose mother and younger sibling still live in almost-Russia) let his love for a beautiful computer systems engineer stand in the way of his mission? Can said beautiful systems engineer love and defend a man who killed his own brother and had a hand in many more horrendous things, especiallyas stakes grow higher? Can their love survive jealous, gun-wielding observers of their growing passion for one another?
OPINION:
A memorable theme song combines with effective cinematography and interesting dialogue to help this drama rise beyond the utter predictability of the plot. (Guess, for example, how Yuri is eventually asked to prove his loyalty to his country.) Additionally, the inevitable series subplot works well with the main story, Yukie Nakama giving a convincing performance as Rieru's younger sister Maria, whose troubled life becomes increasingly affected by Rieru and Yuri's turmoiled relationship. Kaneshiro, who possesses a very nice voice, is convincing even when he is silent, while Nakayama displays an equivalent eloquence of expression in speech to complement Kaneshiro's meaningful looks of yearning. Whatever the medium of communication, however, the sincerity of the actors' acting and interacting prevents the drama from becoming melodrama.
To be picky, there are some logistical problems with the drama, which fails to explain why all the secret agents are fluent speakers of Japanese who apparently speak English in their home country: this is the language their superiors e-mail them in, the language the Japanese police attempt to interrogate Yuri's father with, and the language Yuri uses to converse with an official he is sent to assassinate. Rieru isn't even aware that Yuri is not Japanese until a detective informs her, further proving that Yuri doesn't just blend in with the Japanese because he is played by Kaneshiro. Additionally, for secret agents, they do remarkably little to alter their appearances while on the job, where being recognized is presumably the equivalent of being compromised: Kai maintains his lank-haired, greasy look throughout the drama, Yuri puts on glasses and picks up a briefcase to impersonate the Foreign Ministry official, and Naomi takes the cake by donning a wig--there is nothing remotely similar to Tom Cruise's elaborate disguises from Mission: Impossible, as the series is driven more by character than intricacy of plot. Despite these incongruities, however, Nisennen no Koi is an above-average drama in the overdone spy genre; I think it would hold up well in repeated viewings.
VERDICT: 8.2/10.0. Star-crossed lovers and double-crossing spies. Sounds like a winning formula to me.
PERSONAL OPINION ON THE ENDING: Endings of books and movies, especially ones that must tie up crucial plot points, are rarely fully satisfying. The last exchange of Nisennen no Koi tries to bring closure in a roundabout way, seems like a bit of a misstep.
posted by alice @ 10:15 AM
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