Golden Bowl

Saturdays 9pm, start 4/20. Written by Nojima Shinji. Theme by Paul Anka. Kaneshiro plays a cheerful executive who goes bowling after work, Kuroki a determined player who is paired with him.

Japanese-Taiwanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro stars as Akutagawa, a securities analyst who relieves the stress of sitting at a computer screen all day with nightly sessions at the local bowling alley. The young salaryman is so good, in fact, that the alley's elderly owner tells him he's pro material and bequeaths him his own "golden ball," since he won't need it anymore. It turns out a local developer is trying to convince the owner to sell the bowling alley, whose business has never been the same since the end of Japan's huge "bowling boom" of the late '60s and early '70s. The developer wants to tear it down and build a love hotel.

Of course, the longtime employees of the alley, as well as the manager of the planetarium that's located on the roof and a former pro who frequents the establishment, oppose the sale and try to convince the owner not to cave in. The developer comes up with an idea: He and the owner will bowl for the building. There is also a romantic subplot involving an upper-middle-class housewife (Hitomi Kuroki) who uses the same locker that Akutagawa does, but in the daytime.

[NTV Synopsis]: Focus, concentration, proper posture and good release are the hallmarks of a good bowler. Welcome to Golden Bowl bowling alley. A bit rundown and small but no worse for wear, the Golden Bowl is stockbroker Shu Akutagawa's favorite haunt. A regular, he likes nothing better then the rumble of the bowl running down the alley and crash and crackle of the pins tumbling down. When his old flame Hitomi Sakura - now married to someone else - makes an appearance at the Golden Bowl things start to heat up again as Shu teams up with her to challenge some pro bowlers. Will Shu be as lucky with Hitomi as he is with the pins?

STARRING: Kaneshiro Takeshi, Kuroki Hitomi, Matsumoto Rio, Ogawa Naoya, Degawa Tetsuro, Shofukutei Tsuruko, Enomoto Kanako, Segawa Eiko, Takewaki Muga and more.
NETWORK: NTV
DURATION: April through June 2002.
REVIEWS:

A romantic comedy starring Kaneshiro Takeshi??? Yep, and it's a bowling drama as well! As for Kuroki Hitomi, she still looks beautiful even in her 40's. - Jacque