Toyo Vice is a 2022 HBO show, one of three I’ve had my eye on recently, the other two
being We Own This City, from the creator of The Wire, and The Offer, which chronicles
the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
It stars Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe and Rachel Keller.
Tokyo Vice is based on journalist Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction first hand account of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Police and the underworld.
It follows a white journalist, a stranger in a strange land, as he works for a publication
in Tokyo and ends up going after one of the city’s most powerful crime bosses.
It comes with the promise of a gritty but stylish exploration of Tokyo’s underworld
and the Yakuza, a particular organised crime syndicate that I think has been pretty underused
in western movies and shows, so I was looking forward to this.
It first came to my attention because Michael Mann, the legendary director of Heat, The
Insider, Collateral and Last of the Mohicans, was attached to it.
He ended up only directing the pilot, but the show’s name obviously riffs of Miami
Vice, which he was a big part of.
Now I don’t want to go off on a tangent with this rant, but the first episode is full
of Mann’s mannerisms, so to speak.
And I mean modern Michael Mann, director of Blackheart and Public Enemies, not classic
Michael Mann, director of Heat and Manhunter.
So if you’re familiar with his style after he fell in love with digital cameras, you
know the drill.
Bizarre, unorthodox camera angles, handheld camera work often right up close to the actors
and focusing on random things, music slapped all over making you a bit unsure of what the
tone is supposed to be.
It isn’t particularly noteworthy, but the reason I mention it is because after the first
episode, the season settles into its own rhythm & style, and episode 2 is when the show actually
gets it’s opening credits, not the first episode.
So Mann’s episode feels pretty detached, especially with its style, and it does make
you wonder what was even the point of getting him to direct the pilot, if he’s going to
be wildly unconnected to everything that comes after.
It seems to be a gimmick at this point – Martin Scorsese with Boardwalk Empire comes to mind
– of a big name director attracting attention to a new series by directing the first episode,
and then staying on with some vague executive producer episode.
And isn’t it harder to direct the first episode of a show, where you have to introduce
characters, set up the plot etc etc – why not give Mann the last episode, or one somewhere
in the middle?
Anyway, coming back to the show itself – there are pretty much three main characters, each
whose stories become interconnected.
Jake is a reporter looking for a good scoop, and he develops professional relationships
with cops and with criminals who he looks to use for good stories, and who in turn try
to use him to make their enemies’ lives a bit more miserable.
He is our moral anchor, a bit of an a**hole but endearing enough, and his investigations
lead him to becoming entangled with gangsters, murders and bizarre suicides.
There’s a white girl, Samantha, who is something of a singer and escort – but no ***ual escort
– at a club who has ambitions to start her own thing, and she develops a relationship
with Jake, but moreso with a Yakuza novice called Sato, who is our third principle character,
and who we follow as he rises through the ranks until he becomes trusted enough to be
working directly for the boss of his clan.
Ken Watanabe plays a cop who slowly becomes more and more of a key player, until the police
become more substantial characters.
He first comes off as pretty shady, but its quickly established that the police must deal
with the Yakuza, and he essentially attempts to keep bloodshed to a minimum by maintaining
the status quo in the underworld.
So you have the journalist, the woman, the Yakuza, and the cop.
The very best thing about Tokyo Vice, something that really sticks out, is the sense of authenticity.
I’m not Japanese, nor am I knowledgeable in Japanese culture, so I might be talking
absolute rubbish, but it really feels like you have been transported to Tokyo.
Nothing feels like a stage or film set, it all feels very real.
Then there’s the characteristics of the characters, the fact that most of the time
people are speaking Japanese instead of the show pandering to western audiences, the fact
that the main character is often subjected to casual racism which he has no choice but
to endure – it doesn’t feel like those movies where they insert Chinese characters
and take the story East to please the Chinese market – if anything Tokyo Vice feels like
a criticism of the way things are in Japan, and very quickly Jake is overcome with a feeling
of hopelessness, that nothing can change and the bureaucracies are all corrupt.
With that being said, my overall thoughts on Tokyo Vice is that it has issues, but there
is potential for greatness here.
Some of the less-than-great factors include when the Japanese actors are speaking English.
It just takes a few episodes to get used to, as it often sounds weird, like there’s lyp
synching going on or some of the cast are reciting their lines phonetically.
It makes it a bit awkward to stay immersed sometimes because you know a scene is being
played seriously but the way some of the dialogue is spoken suggests far from it.
The acting for the most part is so so anyway, I thought Elgort and Watanabe were good, as
were many of the other cast members, but a few individuals let the side down.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with the actress who played Samantha, something about
her just screams ‘B grade actor’, and I failed to see what kind of charms she had
over the likes of Sato.
In fact, her entire storyline, with her hanging around the club, entertaining guests, getting
into a dull romantic relationship with Sato, it was all pretty boring, and I could really
have done without it.
The entire first half of the show is just a bit dull really, both because of uninteresting
plot lines and because it all feels a bit clunky and disjointed with all the different
elements being explored but not quite coming together.
At times it feels like the show doesn’t know what it wants to be – the escapades
of a young woman who’s ran away from home, an analysis on police corruption and the integrity
of journalism, a hard-boiled gangster drama, or a number of other things.
There’s 8 episodes, and episode 5 is when it starts to get good, when it really picks
up.
Suddenly things start to synchronise, and the show dips deeper into the cop drama and
Yakuza, all of a sudden the good elements kick in and the gears start turning.
Tokyo Vice very much feels like a set up for a show that will last for several seasons,
if successful.
It’s a good set up for a new season; you can feel all the chess pieces being put into
place for a show in which a journalist and an honest cop look to take on the Tokyo underworld.
I mean, it’s disappointing that the first season didn’t do that – I thought that
was the entire premise – but the sow is finding its feet and perhaps it will be one
to watch after a few more seasons have been released.
It definitely needs a second season as it feels a bit unfinished, and the flashforward
opening scene of the season doesn’t even happen.
But many great shows, like Breaking Bad, had clunky or difficult first seasons – if they
play their cards right, this could be a great slice of television.
It was a really slow start, I was at a stage where I was regretting watching it, but somehow
it managed to amble its way across the finish line, left me in anticipation of what is to
come, and ultimately gets a thumbs up from me.
There’s a surprising amount of solid character development for minor side characters too,
so it makes me hopeful as clearly there’s decent writers in the writing room, they just
need to sort their feet out.
There’s good stuff in here, and then there’s the fact that, with the Yakuza, it’s a bit
of an untapped potential, but they need to refine what they have.
s That being said if the same mistakes are repeated
in subsequent seasons I’ll probably bail, because there’s too much partying, too many
pointless clubbing scenes and too much focus on Samantha who, funnily enough now that I’ve
said that, is actually quite an interesting character with where she’s left at the end
of season 1.
There’s good and bad – I mean, that hard edged tension of the opening scene is never
really matched in the rest of the season, we instead get weird stuff like two guys singing
to the backstreet boys.
When you think Yakuza, you think tough as nails gangsters, torture, murder, violence,
gang wars…and yeah, like I said, it gets there eventually, but I does feel like season
1 is not fully sure of what it wants to be.
It doesn’t quite deliver but there’s potential here for a stylish, gritty crime drama with
three man focuses – the cops, the gangsters, and the press.
There’s a line near the end, I think it’s like the second last like of the show, where
someone says something like “look, I know I ****ed up.
I know you don’t trust me.
But I’m here asking for a second chance” – it’s not a meta line my any means, but
it does feel like it’s describing its relationship to its audience, and I’m willing to give
Tokyo Vice a second chance.
Thanks for watching