'Tokyo Vice' brings a modern noir feel to the Yakuza underworld

Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe stalk the mean streets of 1990s Tokyo in this stylish thriller based on real events. (Available at SBS On Demand for a strictly limited time)

Source: HBO Max / Endeavour Content / WOWOW

In the opening sequence of Tokyo Vice, American reporter Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) and Japanese vice squad detective Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) don stab-proof vests before going to a sit-down meeting at a high-class restaurant with a member of the yakuza, Japan’s notorious organised crime syndicates.

After being told in no uncertain terms that publishing a story he’s been pursuing will result in not only his death but the deaths of his entire family, Adelstein coolly asks if he can smoke a cigarette while he considers the offer. The sharp-suited thug even lights it for him. From there, we flash back two years to 1999 to see how the very white, very young Adelstein found himself in such a fraught situation.

This is Tokyo Vice.

Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) is out of his depth. Source: HBO Max / Endeavour Content / WOWOW

Based on the 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (which may be not as accurate as its author contends) and created by American playwright J.T. Rogers, with crime cinema legend Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Heat) directing the first episode and acting as executive producer, Tokyo Vice is a sleek, stylish procedural that follows the ambitious Adelstein, a Westerner obsessed with Japanese culture (he lives in Tokyo, is fluent in the language, and even practices aikido) as he becomes the first non-Japanese reporter for the prestigious Miecho Shimbun newspaper. Encouraged by his superior, Emi (Rinko Kikuchi) to investigate a string of suicides that seem linked to the yakuza, he finds a mentor in Watanabe’s weathered cop, who warns him that a more oblique approach might yield better results – and be safer.

Rinko Kikuchi in 'Tokyo Vice'. Source: HBO Max / Endeavour Content / WOWOW

We’ve been down this road before – 30 years ago we had Philip Kaufman’s Rising Sun (1989) and Ridley Scott’s Black Rain (1991) in cinemas, crime films that dealt with the West’s paradoxical fascination with and mistrust of Japan (of the two, Black Rain is worth a look) but invoked the White Saviour trope as Sean Connery and Michael Douglas, respectively, proved more adept at navigating the Japanese underworld than the Japanese.

Tokyo Vice, however, frames Elgort’s Adelstein as a babe in the woods, hopelessly out of his depth – at least initially. He may have read deeply about Japan, he might love the food and the clubs and the history, but he doesn’t know the streets and he fits awkwardly in the culture he’s trying so hard to immerse himself in – visually Elgort is frequently shot towering over his Japanese colleagues in the newsroom, a clear marker of his outsider status. Elsewhere the vibrant neon shimmer of nighttime Tokyo evokes the garish yakuza films of Seijun Suzuki, such as Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967), while some matter-of-fact violence can’t help but recall  Takeshi Kitano’s gangster pictures, from Violent Cop (1989) to Outrage (2010).

Show Kasamatsu as Sato. Source: HBO Max / Endeavour Content / WOWOW

In terms of plot, Tokyo Vice is reliably twisty, trucking in mixed loyalties, mixed signals and a deep well of paranoia. Adelstein’s personal life becomes entwined with – and as complicated as – his professional one when he befriends yakuza footsoldier Sato (Show Kasamatsu), at first only cultivating him as a source but eventually coming to rely on the charismatic criminal as an ally. The pair both have a yen for nightclub hostess Samantha (Rachel Keller), who also has her own secrets.

Ken Watanabe Source: HBO Max / Endeavour Content / WOWOW

Then there’s Watanabe’s pragmatic cop, whose cautious approach to dealing with the yakuza may conceal deeper connections to the criminal world. Like any good noir, trust is a precious premium and betrayal is always on the cards.

And Tokyo Vice is a great noir. It might be a fiction based on an exaggeration, but it’s still utterly gripping TV.

Tokyo Vice episodes are available weekly at SBS On Demand but only for a strictly limited time. Be quick!