Am going to try to make this a bit shorter than the last few posts in this series but have said that before and too often it doesn't work out! My plan is to start finishing up some of my American TV series, will discuss one show in this post. In the previous post for this ongoing series said this post would feature a pair of older Japanese movies and perhaps a drama, will look at a pair of films but haven't figured out which ones yet and will skip a J-drama. Will also briefly look at a Korean drama and which format do you viewers prefer, a post that just features one country or one that has things from America, Japan and South Korea? I have no preference as far as the format goes just as long as the posts are interesting and to date think all have been so. EDIT: Have put "Gunsmoke" on the back burner for too long, will talk about that in the next post for this series which should be about finishing off the ninth season.
In that last post done a week ago had featured the two ex-HKT members Haruka and Miku at the top, talked about how quiet both had been. A viewer asked which did member did I think was the hottest but never did answer that and I usually don't to those kinds of questions. One reason is that my hottest and alluring HKT member has been Madoka Moriyasu and have done close to ten posts for her but none for a while. I think she is truly out of this world and while she wouldn't get a grade of a 10/10 out of me Madoka isn't too far away from it!!!! But Madoka is more than just tantalizing as she's a master pianist and I've viewed many of those YT videos, I much prefer a rock n' roll tune but watching her play is very enjoyable. Not really sure what Madoka has been doing the last few years, she does a little bit of this and that including acting but no FT gigs that I know of.
Began this post two days ago and always try to discuss a few of my favorite women in this 'My Current Watches' series who have disappeared and try to keep their memory alive. Am taking a break and as of now have no clue who I will be musing about. EDIT: Have made my return and there will be no one I will be musing about which is actually good as it means there's been no huge faves of mine who have disappeared recently. The above woman got me thinking and that doesn't happen enough!!!! Which is who are my top ten hottest '48' members and the list has remained the same for a few years, some positions change but not who is in my top ten. In no order Madoka would have a spot on the list, one other HKT member would be joining her who is Haruka. Just two from AKB who would be Juri and Yuki, Nana Owada would be eleventh. That makes four and a trio from SKE brings the total up to seven, of course Akari is one with the other pair being Jurina and Nao, at one time Mina would have made the cut.
Rounding out the ten is another trio, overall I think SKE has the most alluring gals but as far as threesomes go it's tough to top NMB. Those three members would be in my top six, Miru is one and topping her is Nana who was my favorite Idol a decade ago. Last but not least is my all time hottest J-Pop Idol who is Miyuki 😍 but I like everything about her besides her underrated hottish looks and I don't think many other Idol fans would have her at the top of many lists. Miyuki had two posts in April and should have another for her by the end of this month, on the second 'Top Twenty Faves of All Time' list done in 2022 she finished in the third position! Below are many dazzling photos of her and then will begin with what I've been currently watching, first up is an American show I've mentioned in four other posts and just have one more season to go so when I finish that's going to be a sad occasion....
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So with having just completed the 307th episode it'd take a few hundred paragraphs to describe everything and if you haven't viewed any of the shows what I'd write would be meaningless. Very briefly the brothers Sam and Dean Winchester are demon/ghost/monster hunt who hail from Lawrence Kansas. They've saved the world so many times from destruction though that fact is known to just a small handful, most of them aren't even human. At the end of this 14th season Sam is now 36 in age, his brother Dean is forty and have been single all along except for a few one night stands. Towards the end of this season I began to wonder if it isn't time for both to find a mate which of course would be dangerous for a woman. But the Winchesters are getting up there in age so they need some offspring to carry on the family tradition as their parents Mary and John were also Hunters though because of that both are dead. There's one thing I consider to be both a strong and weak point to this series and it's of so many characters coming back to life! For instance Mary Winchester had been killed by a demon in 1982 but reappeared at the end of the eleventh season thanks to Sam and Dean's archangel friend Castiel. Mary was a key part of the next three seasons but was killed in episode 18 of season fourteen, we also saw the father John for one episode in this season.
It's nice to see some characters make a return but it's happened way too many times, even Sam and Dean have been killed a few times plus both have been possessed by a demon or Lucifer! Speaking of him that's my one other minor complaint about this series is that some of the storylines have gone on for too many episodes or seasons but mainly just after the tenth season. Those stories do have endings and of course the good guys come out on top, it's just a minor beef and when a show has over 300 episodes there will be a few ups and downs along the way. My favorite episodes are the stand alone ones where the brothers along with Castiel, Mary and others solve one case in an episode, like "The X-Files" often did with their Monster of the Week cases. Season fourteen did end on a very high note and this ended up being an excellent season though other fans may not be in agreement with me. What a finale and cliffhanger episode twenty was as God himself aka Chuck became so upset with Sam, Dean and Castiel. First he killed their 'sibling' Jack Kline and then God unleashed all of the evil souls from their graves, this final scene took place in a cemetery. So looks like the final season will be of the Earth's saviors trying to save the planet once again from destruction and will that trio also be battling God????
Did mention above how this season began off very badly but quickly become one of the better seasons, said how the fourth episode may have been my favorite of the 307 but do forget many of the earlier shows. That episode was titled "Mint Condition", it was a Halloween show and set in Salem Ohio. My favorite shows are the stand alone ones where the brothers are off somewhere in America to solve a demon case. What makes "Supernatural" much better than most other shows are their strong stories which do include a lot of quirkiness, humor but also gore and horror. This episode had them all plus some terrific old classic rock tunes and Dean loves 70's guitar bands, there were two good songs in this show. The brothers went to Ohio for there had been some very odd killings such as an invisible monster with a chainsaw! It was Halloween and the local station was playing a marathon of Dean's favorite horror movie series "All Saints Day" and for a few seconds thought it may have been a real movie series but found out it was created just for this episode. The final ten screenshots below are from the episode and it shows the movie monster David Yeagar battling it out with the brothers. That creature had such a fantastic line it uttered before cutting someone up which was.... "Time to Slice and Dice!", if you're going to just watch one "Supernatural" episode make it this one! "Mint Condition" was the title as much of the action took place in a comic/hobby shop. Following the pics is a short promo for this episode and after that have one more mini section for this terrific series.
Mary Winchester was the only woman to appear regularly in the series and there's only been three or four main characters which have been men. But there have been quite a few women over the seasons who have been important to the stories, especially the guest stars who sadly only appear for an episode or two. Like "The X-Files" this series was shot in the Vancouver area so many of the guest stars were Canadians and I've known very few of them. In that must see episode "Mint Condition" the main guest star is right above and her name is Genevieve Buechner, in a low key way she looked so seductive in this episode and how she was dressed is in the bottom two screenshots. She played the character of Samantha who was the co-owner of that Ohio comic/hobby shop that Sam and Dean saved from the monster David Yaegar. Genevieve was 26 in age for her guest appearance and is currently 34 years old, as you can see in the top three photos above she's quite a Looker but mainly just appears in Canadian movies and dramas.
Early on there was a recurring female character named Jo Harvelle, she appeared in about a dozen shows and was taking after her mother Ellen who was a demon hunter and was friends with the Winchester brothers. Jo was in her young twenties and was killed off in a season five episode, I was dying to see more of her. Jo was played by Alona Tal and below is how she looked as Jo. To me she looked so alluring and noticed that Dean thought so too, Alona is almost 44 in age now and still looks fabulous, in the series Ellen was resurrected for a few episodes but sadly not Jo. After the pics is a video from season five which is of Jo and her mother dying.
That above mini recap of "Supernatural" wasn't all that mini so let me try to zoom through this and just have three paragraphs. "From Now On, Showtime" is a Korean drama from 2022 and have talked about the first eight episodes, there's sixteen in all and have two more for today. But the last time I talked about this fine series was two months ago and am juggling so many dramas had forgotten all about this show! So above have the links to the other posts for this drama and the for the last six shows will have those recaps in posts for Ki-Joo. She has a new series beginning in June so was going to combine the next two episodes with photos and news for that next series, then will figure a way out to post about the final four shows. That way can explain more of what takes place and it's awful hard doing so in 3-4 paragraphs. But will try to do so in two and will go into more detail on the upcoming post(s) that were mentioned. Ki-Joo plays the lead female role of Seul-Hae and she tends to have the lead role in every drama she appears in. Seul-Hae is an officer at the Gangguk police station, it's a section of Seoul and she's a very efficient officer but has been turned down every time she tried getting a promotion to being a detective. A man that is a detective is Seul-Hae's slightly older senpai Hee-Soo who in the ninth episode finally asked Seul-Hae to be his girlfriend, she had lived with his family after the mysterious death of her father.
Hee-Soo asking Seul-Hae out is in the below screenshots, she gave neither a yes or no for now. For the first 3-4 episodes this was a semi-lighthearted drama with doses of seriousness but the that's flipped in these last few shows and it's becoming a darkish series. But there was one excellent humorous scene early on which took place at a bowling alley, it may have been the best scene to date. Not wanting to admit he's fallen head over heels for Seul-Hae is the magician Cha Cha-Woong but it's a trio of ghosts who do most of his tricks when performing. That trio is below and features two older men and the very young tech whiz Ah-Reum who is such a cutie. They were the reason Cha was able to stun Hee-Soo in a bowling match and that was one fun scene but after that is when things became much more serious. Ten years before Seul-Hae's father who was a detective had been slain by a serial killer who was dubbed The Full Moon Murderer and sure you can guess why. Shortly after that killing the unknown murderer disappeared but has he made a return? For the killings have started again and they have the same MO, is it the same man or a copycat killer? That no one knows but you can see in the bottom screenshots that the focus has switched to finding the killer who is the man in the top screenshot. He's looking for the magician Cha and the question is why, Seul-Hae was so worried about her new friend and possible future love interest that she's been guarding his house at night but so far no sign of the killer.
What hasn't been explained yet and will soon be weaving into the story of the Full Moon Murderer is what may have taken place in the past, over 2,000 years ago! We've begun to see brief flashbacks of what took place way back then, Cha seemed to be a disgraced Warrior and had been imprisoned by the present day Full Moon Murderer! Plus back then Seul-Hae had been some sort of Princess and what happened back then is a reason for the present day murders but why has this man reappeared 2,000 years later plus what's up with Seul-Hae and Cha, are they both reincarnations? Or did they escape to the future and neither knows anything about their possible long history, there are six long episodes to go fo/r everything to be explained! Of course much more has been happening but the two main storylines are of the present day killer along with what was up with Cha and Seul-Hae twenty centuries ago. That was a brief look at what's been taking place and I've really enjoyed this drama to date, much more than I was expecting. To me Ki-Joo is the best actress around these days and I've never seen her appear in a drama that wasn't worth viewing. Will discuss this series more in Ki-Joo's next which should be in the first ten days of June, will also briefly look at her new show and hope there will be much more than just the two dramas.
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Right now is when I'll be taking a break until tomorrow or in a way you can say today as it's when I'll be talking about the above and below movies which are part of the nine movie series "The Wandering Guitarist". However only four have been subbed and you will see the other pair reviewed but not right away. Above you can see a mini DVD boxset, besides this movie "Red Pier" was in the set and that will be in the next post for Japanese movies as I still have so many from 1949-65 that I have yet haven't viewed yet but will eventually get to them all. In this nine movie series that ran from 1959-62 Akira Kobayashi plays a wandering nomad/guitarist named Shinji Taki, he's in all the movies. Also appearing in most is my top actor from the 1960's Jo Shishido, his role wasn't too large in this first film that was titled "The Wandering Guitarist" but it's much bigger in the next film for this post. Shishido's name isn't the same in the films but the story of him trying to find Taki and avenge the death of a close friend or brother will be. Also in most of the films yet with different character names is the above woman Ruriko Asaoka who I've talked about in two previous films, she's 85 in age these days yet still acts on occasion. The fourth person to be in most of the films yet with different character names is Nobuo Kaneko, his name in this film is Akitsu and he's the father of Ruriko's character Yuki. When this was released in 1959 Kobayashi was 21 in age yet his character Taki may have been in his late twenties. Near the end of the film we learned that Taki had been a police inspector in Kobe yet had to quit because of him shooting a thug, would think an inspector would have to be on the force for a while.
The setting of this film was the port city of Hakodate which is on the island of Hokkaido and never realized the city was so large. Taki had just rolled into town and on his first night broke up a mini scuffle at a bar between two musicians and some American sailors. It turns out the musicians worked for the local head gangster Akitsu(Kaneko) who wanted to hire Taki to be part of his gang, the offer was refused at first. But soon the pair encounter each other again, Taki has heard some facts about this scheming man and joined his gang as their #1 enforcer to learn more about the gangster but don't think we ever heard the word Yakuza said once. Akitsu told Taki his plans were to build a giant amusement park for tourists and that may have been true for it would have been immensely popular. But Akitsu had another plan which he kept secret for now, Taki's mission will be to buy or seize the one company/building that won't sell the land needed for Akitsu's park. That's a small mining company which also owns one fishing boat, of all things it's owned by Akitsu's estranged sister Rie and she won't budge an inch as far as selling goes. Through the grapevine and by doing some investigating Taki learned that Akitsu also has his sights set on entering the drug smuggling trade, though no longer an inspector Taki still despises any kind of illegal activities. That boat of Akitsu's sister could be used for the first shipment and what a devious gangster Akitsu was, helping the thug out will be a new arrival on the island who is George.
We didn't see Shishido's character George until the 34 minute mark, it was a 77+ minute film. George was a hitman from Kobe and it was his friend Taki had shot to death while a police inspector, George had been brought to Hakodate by Akitsu as insurance in case his sister and her husband continue to hold on to the building and mine.... plus he was summoned to help out with the potential drug smuggling. When George learned it was Taki who had gunned down his mate revenge was on his mind but once he got to know Taki George had a slight change of mind, the same thing happened in the next film. Towards the end Akitsu betrayed the two and tried to have both killed by another hitman which failed. The end result was that Taki and George teamed up to take down this demon Akitsu who also had his sister's husband snuffed out! At the end when it appeared Akitsu was going to kill an unarmed Taki George arrived to kill the gangster boss, should that be considered a happy ending? Didn't talk much about Ruriko as Akitsu's daughter Yuki though she is in many below screenshots, her role wasn't too important to the story. Shorter movies are ones I much prefer viewing over ones that are two or more hours in length. There's no time for any filler and the pacing is nonstop so while not a must watch or a classic movie this was one I enjoyed quite a bit. After the screenshots is a trailer for the film which is subbed in English, of course more happened in the two films than what I talked about but the point of this series is to give quickie reviews plus my thoughts on the films and dramas, think most key points are always mentioned in these shorter reviews.
Those are called Lobby Cards above and they were sold at American and Japanese cinemas back in the 1950's/60's, bet those are worth a small fortune these days. Next up is the third film in the "Wandering Guitarist" series for the second has never been subbed, why only do four of the nine films? This third film was titled "Return of the Vagabond" and was released on April 23, 1960 and studios could churn out the films at such a rate back then yet surprisingly most were excellent movies. Akira Kobayashi once again played the lead role of Shinji Taki who was once a Kobe police inspector but was fired after a shooting, he had been offered his position back but refused. The other three major characters were also in the first two films but their names change with each film yet the characters themselves are about the same from film to film. Jo Shishido once again played a tough hitman that was named Tetsu, like in the first film Tetsu wanted to kill Taki for killing someone close to him and in this case it was his brother Taki had gunned down in Yokohama. Nobuo Kaneko played a gangster again who was named Sakakibara, like the first film he was killed at the end and that was probably the case in the second movie. The fourth regular of the cast was Ruriko Asaoka and she was only twenty at the time, she soon became a fairly known star. Her character's name was Noriko Tamaki and like most gals back then fell hard for Kobayashi in his films, to me he didn't appear to be so handsome but what a massive star he became because of this nine movie series.
The setting for each film changes, in the first movie it was the island of Hokkaido. For this third movie "Return of the Vagabond" the hero/nomad Shinji Taki visited the island of Sado which is off the coast of Niigata. After his arrival Taki was run off the road by a truck from the Tamaki mining company, a furious Taki went to complain to the owner. Who was a woman named Yoko Tamaki, she's been running the company since her husband Toshio had died six months prior. Helping her out in the office was the very creepy and dangerous thug Sakakibara(Kaneko) though Taki at the time didn't know the man led the local gangster groups. But what Taki did notice was that Yoko was so frightened of Sakakibara and would change the topic if his name was ever brought up. Taki had lost none of his police inspector skills and was able to find out that Sakakibara's devilish plan was to take control of the Tamaki mines but why? For there didn't appear to be anything special about them and Yoko, along with her sister Noriko(Ruriko) have been struggling running the mining company, if they can't fulfill a 500 ton order within a week their mines may have to be shut! Which is what Sakakibara's wish was and he was forcing the workers to not meet the deadline for the 500 tons of metal, that would force Yoko to give up the company. That's what Taki discovered and soon he found out much more such as the main reason Sakakibara wanted the Tamiki mines! During the War Sakakibara had been an army soldier, when it appeared Japan would lose the War the army stored a vast amount of gold in the Tamiki mines, Sakakibara is the only soldier remaining who knew of that secret!
But there had been a rumor on Sado island about the gold and it seems that was no rumor but a fact! If it's true Yoko would want the Japanese government to have the gold, of course that's the last thing Sakakibara would want to see! Didn't talk about Shishido until now, he played a hitman/thug named Tetsu but did mention in the beginning he wanted to avenge his brother's death. All Tetsu knew is that the killer was lefthanded, so wasn't Taki who was also an ace shooter so did Tetsu find his man? No for the real killer was a assassin named Joe from Tokyo, Sakakibara had brought him to the island to kill Taki and Tetsu to stop their interfering so the gold could all be his!!!! Which of course didn't work out and once again Taki joined forces with his potential killer to rub out a gangster, in the first movie it was Akitsu and in this third film Sakakibara, both times Shishido's character delivered the fatal shot! Will end the review here and as mentioned above these 'My Current Watches' posts are meant to give a quickie review and synopsis about a film plus my thoughts or grades so hate to go past three paragraphs but it's often needed for dramas. I'm such a fan of 1950's/60's Japanese movies and I know most aren't classics yet all are so fun and enjoyable, isn't that what makes a movie worth viewing? For me it is and the casts for both of today's films were very strong as I'm a fan of many of the actors but sadly most are now deceased though Kobayashi is still alive and kicking, he'll be celebrating his 88th birthday in November. Below are many screenshots to help you follow the story a bit better but there's only a trailer for the first "Wandering Guitarist" movie. So after the pics is the theme song for the first film which was sung by Kobayashi and was a hit single back in 1959.
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