Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Final Life’ On Amazon Prime, A Japanese Crime Drama With An Otherworldly Investigator

Amazon has been sneakily becoming big in acquiring shows from the Far East and India to not only show in their home countries but here in the U.S., as well. Japan has been a fertile source; Tokyo Girl did well for the service worldwide in 2018. Now comes the 2017 show Final Life. Read on for more…

FINAL LIFE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In 2017, a police detective is on the phone, standing next to his car near the airport. He’s told he has to pick up someone at the airport.

The Gist: The detective, Ryo Kawakubo (Shôta Matsuda) joins his veteran partner at the airport to pick up a VIP named Song Shi-on (Taemin), a South Korean man who looks like a K-pop singer with silver hair. Their job is to transport him to their boss, Kenichi Honda (Shô Aikawa) safely.

But when they veer off the highway and pull into the factory where they need to go, Ryo’s partner is shot dead through the windshield by a sniper. During the ensuing chase, Ryo finds out that assassins have been hiding in wait all over the building, and he fights a particularly tenacious one off. After he handcuffs her, she takes a cyanide pill and immediately dies. This is serious.

Honda is in charge of the Metropolitan Police’s Secret Special Unit, and he was told that Shi-on was to be added to his team, mainly for his special “dangerous” skills. Namely, he has a hypersensitivity that allows him to detect bullets hurtling toward his head, or detect attackers even though he can’t see them. He also has an ability to see many steps ahead just by looking at simple clues.

We see his skills when the team gets diverted to the scene of an explosion. The bloody body of the dilapidated factory’s owner is tied to a chair, but after just one look at his wrist, Shi-on knows that there’s another bomb, even after there’s a second explosion. He even knows where it is and what wires to cut.

When the team finds two abandoned children in a room at the factory, Ryo flashes back to a scene from his childhood where he buried a boy his age (his brother?) in a shallow grave. We then flash back to Princeton in 1955, where someone is writing a letter about the theft of Albert Einstein’s brain after his death.

Then we flash to 2015, where we see a dreamy scene of a young man named Min-Joon (who looks like Shi-on) is having a romantic moment with his girlfriend Kana Ayatsuji (Miori Takimoto); both are studying to become doctors. He wants to stay there all day, because all he can think of is proposing to the beautiful Kana, but his American buddy Jim (Kyle Card) says that the clinical trial they were going to participate in is starting. Min-Joon tears himself away, promising to meet Kana back there in two days. He walks into the lab room and gets held down and injected with a mystery substance.

Our Take: The subtitle of Final Life, a Japanese crime drama that debuted in its home country in 2017, is Even if You Disappear Tomorrow, and that title makes sense. Produced by Yoshiya Nagasawa (Big Man Japan), we don’t learn too much about Shi-on in the first 34-minute episode beyond the fact that he has these special powers and, deep in his mind, he’s longing for this love that he lost. We know that Kana is still around, working at a cafe and perhaps no longer pursuing a medical degree. So there’s going to be a reunion at some point.

But judging by the flashbacks from Shi-on and Ryo, there are backstories to explore in Final Life. But, first and foremost, the show is about action: Fights, chases, shoot-outs, and more. And the action here is pretty good; it actually helps move the plot along instead of just freezing it in order to get the action in.

Of course, the fact that Shi-on is played by a real-life K-Pop star means that there’s going to be a lot of shots of his pretty face contemplating things, his hair being tousled, and cute scenes between Shi-on and the adorable Kana. But that shouldn’t take away from the action of this show. At least we hope not.

Sex and Skin: All innocent so far.

Parting Shot: Shots of Ryo, Shi-on and Kana, contemplating things and being brooding, at least in the case of the first two.

Sleeper Star: We’re going to nominate Taemin’s hair. It’s just so silver! And flowing, even though it’s short!

Most Pilot-y Line: Kana: “Do you really think I can become a doctor one day?” Min-Joon: “Of course, Kana. You will definitely become a good doctor.” The whole scene is said in slow, halting English. It makes sense since Kana is Japanese and Min-Joon is Korean, but it doesn’t make for compelling acting.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Final Life won’t tax your brain, but there’s just enough plot and plenty of action to make this a good summer binge.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Final Life on Amazon Prime Video