Year/TV Stn: 2011/TBS
Cast:
Kimura Takuya ~ Kuramochi Takeshi
Ayase Haruka ~ Takaoka Miyuki
Sakai Masato ~ Himuro Haruhiko
Yamamoto Yusuke ~ Inuzuka Natsuo
Synopsis: (from Jdrama weblog)
11 men were sent to the South Pole for the first time in February 1957 in a national project to explore Antartica. They were accompanied by a dogsled of 19 Sakhalin dogs. When they left for Japan a year later, they were forced to leave the dogs behind due to the bad weather. In January 1959, Kuramochi Takeshi and some others joined a third expedition to ascertain the fate of the dogs Taro and Jiro. Slacker's review:
"Nankyoku" is not your average Japanese drama. It's also not a drama about romance, so even if Kimura is leading, ratings wld be affected because of the nature of the plot. Nonetheless, this drama is really above the average. It's a touching, genuine story about a group of men and dogs who went to Antarctica for a expedition. It might be boring at first, but the storyline wld touch many hearts later on. I guessed the dogs made the drama alive. It's sad to see the dogs dying one by one as they tried to survive the harsh climate conditions. It's also touching to see Kuramochi trying all means to return to Antarctica to save his dogs.
Kimura obviously has aged quite a bit, but acting is still his usual quality. It's good that he challenged himself with characters like Kuramochi. While Kuramochi had a great relationship with his dogs, his romance with Ayase's Takaoka was less focused...very low profile. I wished that they cld give the couple more screen time together.
Sorry to say, Ayase hardly appeared in the drama, even though she's the female lead here. She's not leading the drama in fact. This is a guys' drama, so sorry la...even A lister also becomes flower vase.
The rest of the cast was great, especially actors like Sakai, Kagawa and Yamamoto. It's good to see younger actors acting in more serious productions rather than those exaggerating idol dramas.
