Utahime

I just finished watching Utahime (dramawiki site is here), a nostalgic romance set in the mid-1950s.  What an excellent drama!

The drama starts off with the trials and tribulations of Akira (played by TOKIO lead singer Nagase Tomoya), a young man who loses both his job and his fiancee in one fell swoop.  His mother, a famous singer, sends him off to the final showing at a run-down movie theatre off in the boondocks, an old  movie called "Utahime" that she assures him will change his life.  Akira, not pleased, heads off to the tiny seaside fishing village where the theatre is located, and gets drawn into the film, as it seems the film is actually about his own grandfather:

The movie's story revolves around Taro (also Nagase Tomoya), a soldier who washes up on the shores of a beach on the last day of the war.  He is rescued, but has no memory of anything that happened before.  For ten years, he lives with and works for the man who rescues him, a movie theatre owner.

The younger daughter of the family, Suzu (Aibu Saki) is a feisty girl just on the verge of adulthood.  Suzu is in love with Taro, but he seems not to notice.  In the meantime, a local yakuza thug, "Croissant no Matsu" (a hilarious Sato Ryuta) has fallen hard for Suzu and is determined to make her his wife.

Most of the drama is focused on life in their tiny rural fishing village and how Suzu and Taro deal with their evolving relationship.  Things become more complex with the appearance of Miwako (Koike Eiko), a woman from Taro's past who is determined to make him remember the person he once was.

Utahime didn't get very high ratings, but I absolutely fell in love with it.  I'm not sure if it was because of the 1950's setting, or because of the story itself, but it is one of the most original and entertaining dramas that I've watched in a long time, even with the rather hokey premise.  The acting was all-around excellent with an especially talented supporting cast and the story kept me riveted.  Taro and Suzu have a very electric relationship--and it turns out the two actors playing the roles later got together in real life. Highly recommended!