When I heard about Gold, I was very skeptical. A dorama about Saotome Yuri (Amami Yuki) trying to raise three kids to be Olympians? Doesn't sound like your average jdorama but neither does it entice me with lots of possibilities. The casting had me intrigued with GTO and Nagasawa Masami but no one had booked the series for subbing in the beginning of the season and I wasn't curious enough to want to spend money on a HKDVD. Lo and behold someone decided to sub it!
Gold isn't really about preparing athletes for the Olympics. Its more of a dysfunctional family dorama. Saotome Yuri has a brother complex about her dead brother who was an Olympian and wants to fulfill the family dream of winning gold at the Olympics. The eldest son who is a swimmer is a mommy's boy and clearly does not have a swimmer's body. Whoever did the casting for this dorama should be fired immediately. The daughter who is a diver, is in love with GTO who is the coach and foster father figure.
The second son who does not have a runner's legs and has a face that I would have to bash in is rebelling against the family dream. On second thought, I think the casting director should be burned alive as a apology for the horrible casting of the two sons. Lastly, the father is a former Olympic gold medalist who was used by Yuri as basically a sperm donor and is now a jobless bum living off his rich wife. Yuri doesn't want to get a divorce from him because it would affect her standing as a charisma beautician. (whatever the fuck that means)
The sports part sucks because not only do the two sons not look like athletes, we are given no indication of how good they are in the world stage. I mean London Olympics is two years away and they should be competing in the international circuits/events. If they want to seriously win gold, they better be at least top 10 in the world. The only indication of how crap they are is when GTO recommended that the swimmer son change from freestyle to breaststroke and giving excuse about Asians not having swimmer bodies. Hello?! The kid doesn't even have broad shoulders which come from swimming since young or any muscles. Have they no idea what swimmers actually look like? This is as bad as Yamapi pretending to be a basketball player.
Masami comes in as Yuri new secretary and this is where the show is fun. The chemistry between Amami Yuki, GTO and Masami is awesome. Lots of funny dialogue between Yuri and Masami's character and GTO is one of the few actors who can stand alongside Amami Yuki and not look out of place. I really enjoyed the funny banter in this show and when I checked the wiki before doing this post, I should have realised the writer was Nojima Shinji, writer of Love Shuffle, Bara no nai Hanaya and Pride.
He is a writer when paired up with good actors can turn mediocre concepts into great jdoramas. At the very least, there's going to be lots of witty back and forth dialogue. Its not must watch but I think its going to be a decent series. I just wish that they had gone a story about any type of organisation except for sports.
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