Monday, March 19, 2018

Sakaguchi Kentaro to star in the Japanese remake of hit Korean drama series "Signal"

Sakaguchi Kentaro will be starring in the Japanese remake of hit Korean drama series "Signal" which will be shown via Kansai TV / FujiTV from April 2018 in the Tuesdays 9pm timeslot. The Japanese version titled "Signal Chouki Mikaiketsu Jiken Sousahan" (Signal Investigation unit for long term unresolved cases) marks Sakaguchi's first leading role in a drama series in his 9-year acting career. The original Korean drama from tvN was inspired by the Hwaseong serial murders and starred Lee Je-hoon, Kim Hye-soo and Cho Jin-woong.

Sakaguchi plays the lead character Saegusa Kento, a police officer who manages to connect to another police officer living in the past through a disposed walkie talkie and the two of them work together to crack unresolved cases. Saegusa works at Josai Police Station and learnt criminal profiling on his own. When he was a child, there was a kidnap-cum-murder case involving his classmate and his elder brother committed suicide due to a past case. This led Saegusa to be scarred emotionally and he has a deep distrust for the police even though he became a police officer to find the truth behind his brother's death.

Sakaguchi commented that he was really happy to be offered his first leading role and is raring to go and give it his best shot. He revealed that when he first heard of the storyline, he was very interested in it and described his character as one who is tormented mentally by his dark past. As such, he wanted to take on such a challenging role.

Sources: Sanspo / Sponichi / Oricon

3 comments:

astromantic said...

Signal is one of my favorite k-dramas (maybe even my favorite), and I like Sakaguchi Kentaro enough but... I just don't know about this. LOL. I feel like I may be disappointed. I'm hoping for the best.

Chiaki said...

Hi astromantic, I share your sentiments. I don't watch a lot of K-dramas and Signal is one of the few that I really liked. I don't want to write off the Japanese version just yet but I know that I will be making comparisons between both versions so inevitably, the Japanese version will have big shoes to fill and do more to impress me.

Just Someone :) said...

I haven't watched the Korean Version yet but i just finished the Japanese remake up to Episode 3 and i can say that it gives off the feeling of wanting to see the next episode not because you feel like something is lacking but because it is so good, that the actors are very into their characters like as if its really happening. And that doesn't exclude Sakaguchi Kentaro. He really slays the character. And i saw lots of good comments at the comment section as well. Also Korean version is Korean Version and Japanese is Japanese. :))) This is just my opinion tho. good day everyone <3