Post
by Edohiguma » Jan 18th, '11, 19:01
Not bad so far.
But I've seen four points in episode 1 that made me cringe (and that is 40 minutes into the episode as I'm typing this.)
In the backflash at the hostage rescue, the assault team goes in guns blazing, shooting at full auto. That is utter bullshit. Nobody does that. Then, when the chick arrives at the WTO thing, we see three US soldiers guarding the area. One has a clear US Army patch. The US military can't be deployed like that on US soil and the army is a broadsword, not a scalpell. Also, for guard duty their entire equipment is very light. No armor, no webbing, no helmets, no radio. And they're carrying their rifles extremely unprofessional (the guy on the right side even has lousy trigger discipline.) Second thing was the sniper on the roof. She was lacking a spotter. Snipers always work in pairs. Shooter, spotter. Always. Third, the assassination attempt has a classic continuity gun error. When the guy fires the shot in the air, when you look at the action of the pistol, you can see how the slide remains in the backwards position (it's short, you have to pause and go through it frame by frame to see it.) That indicates that the magazine is empty and that he fired the last round. In the next scene, the slide is in the forward position, indicating that either a new round has been chambered or the empty magazine has been ejected and the slide pushed back into standard position manually. A classic continuity error with semi-automatic guns. To make things worse we see exactly the same error when he shoots at the WTO chick.
As for action-oriented, it's usually badly done, not only in J-dramas, but even in US series (where people should know better, really.) I mean, take 24. It's been running that long and Kiefer still can't hold his gun properly. He's usually using the classic Hollywood cup grip, which is nice when you fire blanks and looks cool, but utterly for the rats if you fire live rounds (since it doesn't provide optimum control.)
Been a shooter for roughly 20 years and fired almost anything between 7.62 pistol round (Walther PPK FTW, ok, it's has unimpressive balistics, but it's a cool gun) and 120mm tank round (sue me, I like to shoot things, it's fun) and stuff like that usually makes me cringe. Especially gun handling itself. And lousy trigger discipline makes me want to headbutt a kitten. I almost got shot by some idiot on the range because of it once, so I'm reacting extremely allergic to it (and that was with a Steyer AUG.)
Primarily, I'm quite happy to see Kou again. As cop. Woot. And the glasses suit her. Frankly, the one reason for me to watch it is Shibasaki Kou. Frankly, when I read that Kuroda was working for the Japanese anti-terrorism office, I was already cringing, expecting exactly the points mentioned above. Kou might sooth my gun mind and prevent me from actually headbutting a kitten.
I hope not. Oda has been good in lots of stuff, and they were good together in Kencho no Hoshi, so I'm going to stay optimistic about this. But only time will tell.
