Title: Solomon no Gishou / ソロモンの偽証
Rating: 3 / 10
Recommended for:
Those who want to watch a not-so-challenging suspense story and/or are fans of Bandou Ryouta and Yamamoto Maika
* Disclaimer: I have not read the original novel nor watched the Japanese movie & Korean drama versions.
* Potential spoilers ahead!
Liked:
- Despite not being the leads, Bandou Ryouta and Yamamoto Maika's acting here were pretty impressive and they stood out for the right reasons. While Bandou's character was largely evil, there were traces of kindness in his true nature which were handled very convincingly. On the other hand, Yamamoto's character may have seemed to be on the dark side as well at first but the twist towards the end as her true self was revealed was done very nicely.
Disliked:
- The length of the drama could have been shorter because things were really draggy in the lead-up to the mock trial in school. Even after the trial began, the proceedings were pretty much sleep-inducing for me. Likewise, the so-called truth behind the case felt like all the hoo-ha was for nothing and if you have seen enough of similar suspense stories, it wouldn't take you a lot of effort to figure things out. Perhaps it would be good to make this into a 5-episode drama rather than 8 long episodes.
- While I do like Kamishiraishi Moka as an actress, her role here was not very interesting to watch partly because Fujino Ryoko was a goody-two-shoes model student who was somewhat going with the flow and being a passive party who reacted to developments rather than propel things forward. Although the story positioned her character as someone who took the initiative to start the mock trial and investigation, I couldn't help but feel otherwise. As such, it felt so annoying to see her getting all heated up and antagonising people along the way in the pursuit of the so-called truth.
- Miyazawa Hio's performance here was disappointing, at least to me. I get that he was at a bit of a disadvantage since he was older than those who played the students so this created a very noticeable visual age gap with them and made him look out of place. And to make things more challenging for him, the character Kanbara hardly betrayed any emotions for most of this drama so it made his acting look even more stiff and difficult to stomach. I have to admit, I found it really painful to watch his acting here and the bad memory of watching him for the first time in "Todome no Kiss" kept coming back.
