Good Luck (2003)

The highly anticipated drama featuring Kimura Takuya in a pilot related drama. Kimura Takuya plays the character of Shinkai Hajime, a person who has dreamed about being a pilot. One day from a flight back from Honolulu, the captain is feeling unwell and a emergency landing needs to be made, Hajime takes control and makes a landing but unfortunately people are not happy with Hajime making that move and there are people who try to derail Hajime from realizing his dream to become a pilot.

[From Daily Yomiuri, Jan. 30, 2003, Wm. Penn]: The TBS network could not have found a better good-luck charm than Takuya Kimura. His new series, the aptly named Good Luck!! (Sundays at 9 p.m.), checked in with opening night ratings of 31.6 percent, according to Video Research data. That is the third highest first episode rating of the past decade. The two that topped it were also Kimura hits--Hero and Beautiful Life.
Fuji TV is leading in the overall series battle this year with two winners--Bijo ka Yaju and Itsumo Futari de--but it looks like Kimura has saved the day for TBS with a series that is likely to produce ratings a full 10 points higher than the other two.
Kimura plays a young pilot who still has plenty of lessons to learn, and the script emphasizes the serious nature of an industry that holds thousands of lives in its hands each day. The inane silliness of many Japanese dramas is absent here, except for Naoto Takenaka, who hams it up a bit in his role as a naturalized American who grew up abroad.

This is not likely to be one of Kimura's most memorable performances. So far, it does not appear to have the promise of Long Vacation, Beautiful Life or Nemureru Mori, but he does bring his usual confident, edgy style to the series and gives a very competent performance.

Ko Shibasaki provides the romantic interest in his life. She plays an ANA mechanic. It would be interesting to get some figures on just how many female mechanics the airlines employ in real life, but in this fictional world, equality reigns.
A strong supporting cast and full superstar thrust will keep this vehicle flying high in the ratings. Three

STARRING: Kimura Takuya, Tsutsumi Shinichi, Shibasaki Kou, Uchiyama Rina, Yoon Son Na, Kuroki Hitomi, Kouda Kazuki, Ogawa Ayumi, Kato Takako, Kaname Jun, Ichikawa Miwako, Azumi Shinichiro, Nakao Akiyoshi, Takenaka Naoto, Ikariya Chosuke and more.
NETWORK: TBS
THEME SONG: "Ride on Time" by Yamashita Tatsuro
DURATION: January 19, 2003 through March 2003
REVIEWS:

In the first week, this drama scored a 31.6% rating. The third highest drama rating in the new millenium and each of those three dramas feature actor Kimura Takuya. The second week was a 27.6%, again trouncing the competition including the higher rated NHK dramas and long running dramas. This drama is very enjoyable and Kimura Takuya proves again to naysayers, that his dramas rock!-KNDY