Jmovie review: The Triumphant Return of General Rouge

The Diet should pass a law that these two must do at least two jdoramas a year.

I waited two weeks to watch this movie. Two weeks because I found a torrent but everyone was at 80%. No matter, I had assumed that the person was super seeding. One week later and its up to 85%. Obviously someone had created the torrent and left it unseeded. Either that or the initial leechers who had completed the file did not stay on. So I had to waste another day to get the movie through the FSC ftp, replace the torrent file and seed the rest of the 15%. Good thing the movie is worth all the hassle.

Who do you think you are? L?

General Rouge is the sequel to The Glorious Team Batista and my review can be found here. First, there is no misspelling in the name of the movie. Its Rouge not rogue and I won't spoil why that is. Takeuchi Yuko returns as Taguchi, the psych doctor/counsellor who has been elevated to chairperson of the ethics committee because of her success in the batista case. She receives an anonymous letter accusing Dr Hayami aka General Rouge (Sakai Masato) of accepting kickbacks from a pharmaceutical company and is entrusted to investigate the matter. Luckily for her, Shiratori Keisuki (Abe Hiroshi), her partner in crime in the first movie is admitted to the hospital and the two of them begin their investigation.

I can never watch Ima Ai ni Yukimasu again....

General Rouge reminds me of another good jmovie, Suspect X whereby the supporting character ends up being the main character. Luckily, unlike Suspect X, the great performance by the supporting character does not expose the main actors. Takeuchi Yuko and Abe Hiroshi are already two of the finest Japanese actors. I've never been impressed with Sakai Masato in the few jdoramas I've seen him in but he does a great job as Dr Hayami, a workhorse doctor who is hated by everyone in the hospital. Actually he did a great job in Shinsengumi but was overshadowed by Yamamoto Koji. To speak more of his performance would be to spoil the movie but I'll just say he stole the movie from Takeuchi and Abe which is no mean feat.

Hello nurse...

There is the mystery of who wrote the letter and is Dr Hayami guilty but unlike Team Batista, the success of the movie is not dependent on how interesting the twist is. There is a larger theme of workplace politics and patient care which explored quite thoroughly in the movie and the final chapter is equally exciting although the truth has already been revealed. In the end, the movie the movie is about the character study of Dr Hayami with Taguchi and Shiratori leading the story. There are even cameos from characters from the first movie.

I plead guily for appearing in crap like Triangle and Himitsu no Hanazono.

This is jmovie at its best and I cannot praise it enough. At the end of the movie, I was just wishing that they could come up with another sequel. Takeuchi Yuko and Abe Hiroshi can just do their thing and they just need one or two good actors and make it another hospital mystery. Definitely in my list of must watch jmovies.