Puzzle
Year: 2007
Episodes: 4
Language: Japanese
Genre: Mystery
Synopsis:
A group of armed men seizes a school and takes a teacher and
a student as their hostages. The hostage-takers ask the top class to complete a
puzzle in exchange for the hostages’ lives.
Cheerfulnuts’ Review:
Aside from sharing the same title, being aired on the same
TV network, and having Yamamoto Yusuke in both dramas, Puzzle isn’t related to
2008’s Puzzle in any way. The former is about a group of students from the top
class who are forced to search for 2000 puzzle pieces and complete a picture within
48 hours. A group of armed men barges into a school which happens to be empty
except for two teachers, the students from the top class, and a student who is
about to quit from school. The events are slowly relayed to us through
interviews carried out by an unknown man whom I presumed to be a police officer.
During the entire interview, only the faces of the victims are shown. The delivery
method had instantly caught my curiosity and I thought something as horrible as
the Battle Royal must have taken place. I was wrong.
The hostage-takers aren’t as evil as I’ve expected. In fact,
they aren’t scary at all. The students, on the other hand, are not a bit
memorable. It’s shameful that the female teacher cannot take charge and seems to
be the most panicky among the victims. I also fail to sympathize with any of
them. I find the students’ detachment to each other hard to believe.
Still, I like the delivery of the story and I was suddenly
drawn to it. It’s not boring (each episode lasts only about 24 minutes) and it’s
actually quite entertaining. But it isn’t as good at it has promised. This is a
type of drama that would catch your attention in the beginning and would keep
you from switching off the TV until the very end, only to realize that it’s not
really worth your time.
Cheerfulnuts’ Verdict:
 |
| 4 out of 10 stars. |
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