Looks like I have really procrastinated on my backlog as I haven't been watching the movies and dramas still lying around in my inventory. But I did have a chance to catch a jap movie today and decided to choose Bayside Shakedown 3, as I've almost forgotten I have this movie lying in wait.
Shunsaku Aoshima (Yuji Oda) is promoted to section chief and is also in charge of supervising the shifting of the Bayside precinct police station to a new state of the art building. On the shifting day itself however, the station first received a call of a bank being broken into and later, a public bus being hijacked. What is strange about the 2 cases however is that in both instances, nothing is stolen from the bank and passengers on the bus respectively. Aoshima and his team, already busy with the shifting of the new office, has to take on these 2 cases. Things, however become complicated when the police chief, while inspecting the new building, discovers 3 police guns went missing while the shifting was carried out.
What I love about Bayside Shakedown series is that they have managed to retain the whole original cast from the first time when the drama serial was aired in 1997 till now in 2010 where the 3rd movie was produced. Furthermore, a drama special and the 4th and final movie are being planned to conclude the movie. As such, if you watched Bayside Showdown before, you wouldn't feel lost with a change in cast members.
However, with this 3rd edition, I do have a few grouses with the movie. Although the movie was paced in a appropriate manner throughout, I thought the starting hour of the movie was a bit slow for my liking. Thankfully, things starts to pick up thereafter. As usual, Yuji Oda and Eri Fukatsu put in creditable performances in this movie and the huge supporting cast makes this movie an enjoyable movie to watch. The director also follow previous editions but giving the slow parts a lighter touch with a tinge of comedy in it. However, the slow first half pace really got to me by the time I crawl to 59 minutes into the movie.
Overall, the movie is still an enjoyable watch, but I do feel previous editions were done better.