Ryusei Wagon (流星ワゴン) 2015
Rating: 3/10
Recommend: Hmm, no.. I want to, but I wouldn’t recommend this drama..
Review:
Never before have I seen a drama drop exponentially in quality and grip until Ryusei Wagon. I mean, the first drama was so captivating it left me wanting more. Unfortunately, the following episodes are disappointing. Yes, even with Nishijima Hidetoshi I couldn’t bring myself to finish the drama.
Ryusei Wagon tells the story of Nagata Kazuo (Nishijima Hidetoshi), a middle aged man in the middle of a divorce, losing his job and his kid’s gone mad. Kazuo’s elderly dad, Nagata Tadao (Teruyuki Kagawa), is dying from cancer and he isn’t the least bit sorry for him as Tadao has always been harsh on Kazuo. In a nutshell, his life is a mess. When he was on the verge of ending it all, a burgundy coloured wagon picked him up and drove him to his past. The passengers of the wagon include the driver and his son, who were killed in an accident, and surprise, surprise, Kazuo’s dad. Or a younger version of Kazuo’s dad.
Yes, this is a fantasy/family drama. By the way, both genres are not my favourite but I gave this drama a go for none other than Nishijima Hidetoshi. And also for his pairing with Teruyuki Kagawa, as the last drama they were in was awesome.
Though I was skeptical about the plot in the beginning, the first episode I thought was amazing. It’s all so new and exciting! How they went back to the past, how Kazuo tried to fix his family’s problems, as well as the father-son dynamic. Sadly, it all went downhill from there..
You see, the thing is no matter how many times Kazuo fixed stuff in the past, it turned out that the present stayed the same. Kazuo and Tadao are completely opposite in personality, so needless to say they clash all the time. Tadao, a strongheaded countryman, tries to help Kazuo, the quiet, salaryman in his own ways. This sparks up a lot of issues from their past and always ends up in a screaming/yelling contest. Once in a while might be tolerable, but it happens every episode. Very repetitive. A lot of daddy issues, there.
I’m giving it a 3 still as I really enjoyed the first episode. It has potential, I could see it as an awesome movie. However, repeating the same issues again and again plus a lot of intense screaming throughout 11 episodes is stretching it.