Tokyo Vice on Canal +: How much is a series about the Japanese mafia from the director of Heat worth?

In Tokyo, 24-year-old American reporter Jake Adelstein joins the police and justice department of Meicho Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper. While cooperating with the local police, he is contacted by the mafia. He becomes an interlocutor of the Yakuza and continues to inform the police. But this ambivalent position is not without its dangers.

Tokyo Vice, a series created by JT Rogers with Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller… two episodes on Thursday, September 15 at 9:10pm on Canal+ and MyCanal. Watched episodes: 3 of 8

To headline Tokyo Vice, HBO Max (the original broadcaster) cast Ansel Elgort as Jake Adelstein, an American journalist who recounted his impressive investigation in a book of the same name. The 28-year-old actress is currently on a roll after starring in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story.

In front of him, Japanese film legend Ken Watanabe interprets the policeman Hiroto Katagiri, who will help him navigate within the highly codified Japanese culture and the even more codified yakuza culture. To Western audiences, he is known for his roles in Letters from Iwo Jima, The Last Samurai and Batman Begins.

Finally, Rachel Keller – known for the Legion and Fargo series – plays Samantha Porter, an American expat living in Tokyo who earns a living as a hostess at the Onyx Club in the Kabukicho district. He accompanies many people, from co-workers to high-profile clients to the Yakuza.

In one of his best final performances, Ansel Elgort plays Jake, a young journalist straight from Missouri. A guy with humor, talent and an excellent level of Japanese, which allows him to become the first foreign journalist ever hired by the country’s largest daily newspaper.

But after being hired, he quickly became disillusioned and had to deal with rampant racism in a country where immigration is minimal and with methods that are at least curious, where news reporters have to make do with copy. Police press releases and above all don’t drink are irritating.

But Jake is resilient and resilient. He wanders the dark streets of the Kabukicho district and befriends Samantha, an American bar hostess with a mysterious past, and Sato (Sho Kasamatsu), a young yakuza who collects money at the club where Samantha works, against the protection of his organization. But above all, Jake ends up finding a solid ally in the person of Inspector Hiroto Katagiri.

She is also frustrated by her lack of work and ambition and becomes both Jake’s source and mentor.

no doubt Tokyo Vice Really fun series to watch. The pilot is Michael Mann, who also wears the producer cap. He knows how to capture the treacherous allure of cities, whether in Miami Vice or the Los Angeles of Collateral. Creating the pilot, the aesthetic charter of the series, his keen eye captures the stormy Tokyo, its shadowy alleys and its glamorous neon bars that divide the night.

For those unfamiliar with Japanese organized crime, Tokyo Vice is a great introduction to the world of the yakuza. Starting with the spectacular tattoos that the bodies of these mobsters wear and that the series wanted to show. The drama perfectly describes their hierarchical structure based on the concepts of loyalty and honor. Samurai.

We also see how the yakuza have infiltrated almost every structure of Japanese society so that the authorities are willing to do anything to prevent gang wars. That’s part of what makes Tokyo Vice fascinating. Then Yakuza influence becomes everywhere, leaving Jake, Samantha, Katagiri, or even Sato in constant danger.

In no time, we were thrown into the fascinating world of 90s Tokyo and the yakuza. Not facing this impressive mafia with comfort.