I have developed a somewhat irrational fear and loathing for Japanese actor Kimura Takuya.
It happened after I watched the first episode of a drama called Sora Kara Furu Ichioku no Hoshi. That, in English, is apparently A Million Stars Falling From The Sky, but it's also alternatively titled The Smile Has Left Your Eyes. It's billed as a mystery, a romance and a thriller rolled into one.
The drama starts out with the murder is a young female student that was disguised to look like a suicide. The detective suspects a chef's assistant had something to do with it.
Kimura is the "enigmatic" chef's assistant. He develops a love-hate relationship with a rich and powerful man's beautiful daughter, who also happens to be the detective's little sister.
It seems "enigmatic" here is creepy dressed up in curly brown locks under a newsboy cap. In the beginning, he seems to be the kind man of a few words, one who helps old ladies move furniture and defends a colleague who's accused of stealing wine at a party the company was catering for.
Later, he rescues the rich girl from the amorous attentions of a persistent suitor. Her bracelet breaks in the scuffle, and he even manages to fix it on the spot. It's her birthday party, by the way, held on a big luxury ship.
When the fireworks go up, they are already locking lips.
Next morning, over breakfast, he sells her a story about how his colleague's mother is in the hospital and how they have no money to pay for her treatment. She finds out later that it's all a lie.
When confronted, the chef's assistant says it was just "a game" to see if she would fall for it. He helps her retrieve the money she had thrown into the sea in anger. Unbelievably, she is back in his arms minutes later ...
I am baffled by the psyche of female Japanese television characters. I once watched another dark Japanese drama in which a woman suffered under the control and abuse of her boyfriend. But I couldn't stop watching because I wanted to know what happened in the end. (Apart from other sub-plots, she left him to live with friends, he stalked her, raped her, committed suicide, she bore his child from the rape.)
I'm only writing this because I get the creeps everytime a white-suited Kimura stares out of huge posters at random bus stops. Prob'ly advertising some Japanese hair product I'm never going to buy. Meanwhile, I've sworn off the dark Japanese dramas and anything involving Kimura Takuya. Not that I've liked him much to begin with.
