[jdrama] Beautiful Life review

[scottishlass]

summary:
Beautiful Life tells the story of Okishima Shuji (Kimura Takuya), a hair stylist in one of Tokyo's top hair dressing studios. He has a fairly carefree life, living alone, having success in his job until one day he perchance meets Machida Kyoko (Takako Tokiwa), a ditzy and straightforward librarian.
Kyoko has an incurable illness and she lost the use of her legs at age 17. For the last ten years she has been living at home, going to her monthly hospital check ups. Her family, esp. her older brother Masado, is very protective of her and somehow their life came to a standstill when her illness broke out. She lives a fairly normal life, but she is also very aware of the restrictions Japanese society puts on handicapped and disabled ppl and for Kyoko love is not in her books.
That all changes when she meets Shuji when she almost cause an accident with her car. For his research he frequents her library and from their first bickering matches a tentative love story evolves. To Kyoko who never had a normal boy-friend, Shuji seems to be a person who has a barrier free heart. And in reality she is right, he doesn't care if she is disabled or not. They bicker, they fight, they make up and love each other and all could lead to a beautiful life if not for the illness that slowly eats at Kyoko's body ...


characters:
Kimura Takuya's character Shuji is a straightforward guy who doesn't want to become famous in his profession but to live a fullfilled life. When he meets Kyoko he is drawn to her straightforwardedness and her almost brutal honesty. At first he deals with her as if he would deal with a non-disabled person but he soon realizes that there are things that Kyoko can't or won't do due to her illness. Little by little Kimura portrays Shuji as a man falling in love and becoming aware of what it will mean to his life. It is not one of his flashiest performances but Shuji comes across as a true character nonetheless because of all these little gestures and mannerisms he gives him. He squints, he smirks, he Angsts ... wonderful :)

This was the first time I saw Takako Tokiwa and I can't say much about her other performances, but her whole body language, her posture came across as that of a disabled person. She handled her set of wheels with a casual- and sureness that tells me she trained with the wheel chair - a lot. She gave a very good performance as Kyoko who yearns for love but also knows that a) her time is limited and b) she is not the ideal girl-friend to a normal guy.


review:
I love this series, esp. as it is written by Queen of drama and tears Kitagawa Eriko. In the beginning of the love story it reminded me a lot of all the screw ball comedies of the 30s and 40 from Hollywood where the OTP is always bickering and exchange these little pointed barbs with each other. Shuji and Kyoko are like that.
But there were also a lot of subtle, quiet scenes that made the pace of the show a bit slow during the middle but deepened the character study. These scenes gave the drama depth and addressed a lot of issues that modern Japanese society has with disabled persons.

There are several scenes that I love because they are quiet and not spectacular, but because they are intense they keep popping up in your mind. E.G. the first time Shuji realizes that Kyoko has used the key to his apartment, and that she is right now inside his apartment waiting for him. The cross between utter surprise and utter contentment on Shuji's face is just wonderful. Then there is the scene when they talk about their future, how Kyoko is so suprised that all his plans of having a small hair dressing salon somewhere in the country revolve around her, that in his mind he has already planned a barrier free salon where she can greet the customers and is in charge of the lending books, this scene is so dear.
But there are two real tear jerkers are two scenes towards the end of the series. The first one is when Kyoko asks Shuji to make love to her and the look of utter surprise and sheer horror (of perhaps hurting her) on his face. The scene is sheer desperation as they both know their time is limited, that the illness has caught up with Kyoko and yet, they both tell eah other to believe. And I become a sobbing mess.
The second scene is after Kyoko has passed away. Shuji and his assistant start to put make up on. Then he sends Takumi away and under tears he makes her beautiful. It is a long drawn out scene, it is heart breaking and so loving at the same time. Pure heart break!
If you want a good cry and good laughs, Beautiful Life is the series for you, and a motorbike riding Kimura-san isn't so bad either.



x-posted to dorama_chat

Comments

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

Yeah I liked the no-nonsense approach to the issue of disabled ppl in Japanese society as well. I also liked that they took my home country as a good example of how to handle disability. It is true, there are no such issues as getting into a nice restaurant with a wheel chair. The staff just make the extra effort to provide barrier free surroundings. Most new houses that were build from the 1980s onwards are barrier free. My own apartment house is like this and the apartment above us lives a young man in a wheel chair.

You should watch the last eps. Of course they are tear jerker but both characters learn so much in these and there is a wonderufl sense of eternity even though their time together is limited. They even move in together which is wonderful (Masado even helps them).

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

scottishlass,
thank you for your review...

I have only one, but very big question: where did you get "Beautiful Life" with English subs?

I really want to watch these Kimura series, even was ready to purchase some official release, but couldn't find the one with English subs.

Well, just now I'm downloading his "The Engine" series from torrent, but I'm not sure of file's quality... In fact among official DVDs I managed to find only Chushingura 1/47 with Eng subs (which I purchased successfuly), but nothing else!

May be you can give me some advise where to look for Kimura's doramas (better on DVD) with English subs?

[scottishlass.livejournal.com]

When you d/l via torrent you might want to go here jdramas Join and you can download via Megaupload. Look in the Tags list on the right side. I got Beautiful Life, One Million Stars, Pride, Engine, Hero and Good Luck!! from there. Currently I'm uploading Concerto from 1996 to the site.
Also a good site but they have only 2 or 3 Kimura series Silent-Regrets (http://silentregrets.com/).

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I'll try these links.