alexandral | Dramas I like: Gaiji Keisatsu (Reply)

In attempt to balance Kdrama watching with other dramas, I started 6-episode Japanese drama " Gaiji Keisatsu ", or Secret Police. I expected another version of SP: good looking people, terrorism, child trauma and all other "dark" themes on the surface, naivety and "are they seriously doing it this way in Japan? How do they manage to keep any order?" on the inside. But to my surprise, I am enjoying this very much. There are some annoying little niggles, for example: every non-Japanese person in the drama is a combination of equal measure of evil, slimy and stupid, but on the whole the drama is fabulous.

The main winning point is the lead duo of Watabe Atsuro and Ono Machiko. I think the main lead characters are very well-written, but I also think that the actors achieved perfect synergy with their roles and you don't notice acting, you just see real people. You get everything here: rookie vs old seasoned warrior , fighting, idealism vs scepticism , all blended with UST. You watch them together and in every scene you wonder: what are going to do next? Fight? Kiss (I wish)?

There are also some very interesting psychological turns and wonderful cinematography. This is the first Japanese drama which without any reservations wins with me on the cinematography side. Every scene is coloured in a different, wonderfully dark and rich colour, it is like life is a large kaleidoscope, but every bit of it is dark .

Matsuzawa Haruna (played by Ono Machiko): idealistic , intelligent, ready to fight and protect everyone:

Sumimoto Kenji (by Watabe Atsuro): broken, dark, sceptical, brilliant, father issues and guilt issues.

OTP: She hits him and fights with him. He says caustic things to her but is drawn to her as if she is a magnet.

Close together:

Fighting:

She slaps him (because of some very serious disagreements about ethics):

He grabs her, in an intense manner, to stop any further slapping:

And after that they smile to each other:

She asks him why he has taken her into his team, he responds "you are kind of average looking, your face is easy to forget" (and behind the scenes, he plots Machiavellian plots)