HBO MAX dropped 3 episodes of Tokyo Vice last Friday, this new flashy tv show starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe has a lot to love but unfortunately has shortcomings as well.
The series follows Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) as an American reporter in Tokyo who begins to uncover a history of conspiracy, mafia and crime in the city that has been neglected by the police. In his efforts, he is eventually aided by veteran police detective, Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) The first episode of this new series is directed by legendary auteur Michael Mann. Now I was very excited for this as Mann is an amazing director and has a very unique visual touch. I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed, the first episode feels so unique and unlike anything that is on TV right now to the point of feeling alien. Mann employs his visual touch with breathtaking digital cinematography, fast edits and the intimate camera placements. This all blends together to create an exciting 40 mins of television, even if the story in the first episode was a bit slow. The story however does pick up a quite a bit in the next episode but watching the two episodes back to back feels jarring as Mann only directed the first one, the second and third episodes are by all means well directed but there is a noticeable difference.
The story of the show follows the date to day life of Jake Adelstein who begins a job in a Japanese newspaper. A series of murders begin to happen in Tokyo which Jake believes are all connected through a Yakuza loan shark. The show is well written but it introduces a lot of characters in episode 1 so by the second episode, there are multiple plotlines happening and it does feel a bit overwhelming. I would have liked the series more if it was more focused in its execution . The acting is “fine” but not great, although some Japanese actors do standout. Ansel Elgort is fine as the leading man and has some great character moments in between as well. His character speaks Japanese a lot, while the accent was fine there were some moments of noticeable ADR. The show, while not comedic in nature has natural moments of comedy sprinkled in between which are useful in breaking the tension. All in all, it was a good and enjoyable watch.
Tokyo Vice makes its way into an already saturated genre of crime thrillers with gorgeous cinematography and set pieces which makes it feel distinct enough to warrant an entire series, despite feeling a tad bit overstuffed. 8.5/10
The CineSquad 