Event series of this back to school, “Tokyo Vice” tells the true story of Jake Adelstein, a Western reporter who worked in a Japanese newspaper and denounced Japanese organized crime. To discover on Canal+ and Blue TV.
Born in 1969 in the state of Missouri, Jake Adelstein was 19 when he left to pursue his studies in Japan at Sophia University, considered one of the three best private universities in the country.
Five years later, he is the first “gaijin” – Japanese term used to designate foreigners – to join the editorial staff of “Yomiuri Shinbun”, a conservative and protectionist newspaper, considered the best-selling daily in the world. A daring journalist, he will then face the cruelty of organized crime.
American-Japanese series of eight episodes, the first of which was directed by filmmaker Michael Mann, also executive producer of the series, “Tokyo Vice” draws its inspiration from the autobiographical book published by Jake Adelstein in 2009. He tells, of on the one hand, how he integrated Japanese society as a foreigner, but above all his investigations into the Japanese mafia.
In the series, acclaimed by critics in the United States, it is the actor Ansel Elgort who takes on the role of the journalist. He is surrounded by excellent supporting roles.
>> To see: the trailer for the series “Tokyo Vice”
Breaking the organized crime taboo
Like all new journalists of the “Yomiuri shinbun”, Jake Adelstein is assigned to the miscellaneous section. It deals with the inevitable local pickpockets and perverts until one day a fatal saber slash and a suicide by flames seem to have intriguing similarities.
But as nobody wants to recognize it, as well with the drafting of the newspaper as in the police force, Jake decides to dig this business. An investigation that will lead him to meet several ambiguous characters, whether it’s Miyamoto, a cop who plays it cool, an enigmatic detective played by Ken Watanabe, or a promising young yakuza, Sato, who shows a marked inclination for American gogo-girls.
The journalist quickly understands that publicly admitting the existence of organized crime in Japan is unthinkable. But then how to succeed in publishing an article, him a journalist beginner “gaijin”?
Narrative without violence overload
The screenplay, created and written for television by Tony Award-winning playwright JT Rogers, delivers a narrative that’s free of violence and avoids the overuse of platitudes that are often the preserve of mob crime series.
With this very tense investigation, “Tokyo Vice” excels in keeping spectators in suspense, but also fascinates thanks to its way of depicting the Japanese capital, shown both as a dark puzzle first, but also as a city. ordinary.
Radio subject: Pascal Bernheim
Adaptation web: aq