Brief Story Line
Kento Saegusa (Kentaro Sakaguchi - The 100th Love with You etc) who worked as a low ranked police officer somehow managed to help solve an old kidnapping case in the year 2010. Eight years later he started to work as a criminal profiler in a team that specialized in solving cold cases led by Detective Misaki Sakurai (Michiko Kichise - Love Affairs in the Afternoon etc).
Unbeknownst to all, Kento was able to communicate with Detective Takeshi Ohyama (Kazuki Kitamura - Minazuki etc) from the 1990s through a walkie talkie and were cooperating in solving the cases in the past which were connected to the present. Ohyama himself had been missing since the year 2000 with Sakurai trying to locate him for years to no avail.
However, what Kento and Ohyama did despite their good intentions would have grave consequences to the people involved. So what would happen to all of them and how would the story conclude? You can find out in this interesting series.
End of Brief Story Line
This series was a remake of the successful and critically acclaimed series of the 2016 South Korean TV series titled Signal which was based on the premise of the year 2000 movie Frequency that my wife and I really loved as it managed to combine the sci-fi element perfectly with drama. The main idea was the solving of old case in the past that would have repercussions on things in the present, where both persons were connected through a device (in the movie it was old amateur radio while in the series it was walkie talkie).
What made me and my wife liked in here was the not so complicated and still acceptable logic (at least for us), that whenever things were changed in the past, the present would change as well. This is different from the more recent premise of having alternate time line, which meant that whatever changed in the past would create a new time line and would not implicate the present. Anyway, whichever theory was being used, it is still considered as science fiction/fantasy. For me and my wife though, we just enjoy the whole story and concept.
As a fan of South Korean dramas, my wife had watched that series first before watching this Japanese remake. I would reserve her opinion as I thought it would be better told from her side, but since I had not seen the South Korean version, I could not make a proper comparison. All I can say is that I enjoyed watching this series as the cases were quite complex and the 3 main characters were really engaging. I really loved the chemistry and relationship between Ohyama and Saegusa as well as Kimurai and her mentor Ohyama. There were some emotional moments involving their strong relationships too, despite a rocky start between Saegusa and Kimurai.
Aside from the 3 lead cast, there were also important characters such as Chief Iwata (Masahiro Komoto), the head quarters police chief Nakamoto (Atsuro Watabe) and the Cold Case team members Detective Yamada (Yuichi Kimura) and Forensic specialist Kojima (Tetsuhiro Ikeda). All of them provided the necessary support. They were aided by the generally well performance of the various guest stars in each episode. The series consisted of 10 episodes of around 45 minutes duration, except for the 1st and final episode which was ran to 56 minutes.
The ending of the series had few loose ends that was a bit confusing to me since it was said to be a mini series which should have concluded everything by the finale. After browsing through the internet, I found out that there was a special episode set 2 years after the events of the series, and there was also Signal: The Movie which seemed to be a side story. Sadly both of them were not available on Netflix so it would require a bit more effort to watch them. Hopefully the special episode and the movie would provide closure.
Overall this is an interesting and enjoyable show. I like the cases solving and the sci-fi element which require some thinking but not really complex that would make us missing out the point. I also like the chemistry of the cast. The tone of the series was serious and a bit dark & gloomy with few emotional moments (I think the 9th episode was the most touching one). There was very little action, and even if there was, it was not that well executed (which is still fine by me as it was not what I was looking for). The music was generally OK with the brief opening song sung by BTS titled Don't Leave Me. So if you want to look for the kind of series with such attributes, then you can give this one a try.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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