☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Tokyo Vice (2022-2024) – J. T. Rogers
Based on the
memoir by Jake Adelstein, this two-season drama was executive produced by
Michael Mann (hence the “Vice” in the title).
Equal parts, All the President’s Men and Battles Without Honour and Humanity,
but brought forward to 1999 (those phones!).
I found the series entertaining and compulsively watchable (albeit with
occasional lulls) with the usual strategy of cliffhangers at the end of each
episode and a multifaceted cast: Ansel Elgort as Jake (American working as a crime
reporter for a Japanese newspaper), Ken Watanabe as Detective Katagiri (police
source/mentor for Jake), Shô Kasamatsu as Sato (up and coming Yakuza member
with honour), Ayumi Tanida as Tozawa (power-hungry and evil Yakuza boss),
Rachel Keller as Samantha (American ex-pat hostess with grit and a backstory),
and Rinko Kikuchi as Emi Maruyama (Jake’s supervisor at Meicho Shimbun). Other characters come and go. Tokyo looks mostly glitzy, sometimes grungy. Japan is Japan -- always fascinating. Worth a look if, like me, you can’t fit in
time for a 3-hour movie anymore.
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