Job par Alexis Lebrun September 8, 2022
Seven years after his last feature film, cult director Michael Mann is making his comeback on the small screen by taking part in one of the most anticipated series of this fall 2022. And it was worth the wait: Tokyo Vice offers a fascinating dive into the underworld of the Japanese capital.
Not Lost in Translation
Jake Adelstein is not a journalist like the others. After growing up in Missouri in the United States, he moved to Tokyo when he was only 19 to continue his studies at a Japanese university. Five years later, he became the first foreign journalist to join the editorial staff of the most widely read daily in the world.
And if he manages to achieve this feat, it is because he is of the obsessive type: the first episode of Tokyo Vice shows a determined man who wants to immerse himself in Japanese culture at all costs, which allows him to master the language very well and pass the Japanese newspaper entrance exam with flying colours.
Fascinated by solving crimes, Adelstein thinks of realizing his dream by landing in the police-justice service, even if he starts at the very bottom of the ladder by covering the various facts. From his first investigations, however, he makes the link between several seemingly disconnected cases, and the Japanese mafia – the famous yakuza –, about whom he quickly understands that it is better not to write anything if one prefers to stay alive.
A rather unique atmosphere
But he did, notably by publishing in 2009 the autobiographical book Tokyo Vice (translated in France in 2016 by Éditions Marchialy), adored by Roberto Saviano – the author of Gomorrah who knows a bit about the mafia – , and therefore adapted today in series. In this version broadcast on HBO Max in the United States, the action takes place in the late 1990s: Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) is taken under his wing by Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), an experienced local cop, specializing in organized crime, to whom he gives tips thanks to the contacts made with him by the Japanese mafia.
But this double game is obviously very perilous, just like the daily life of Jake, who surveys the shallows of the Tokyo night, in particular the sulphurous « hostess clubs » where cops, reporters and yakuza cross paths. It is there that Jake meets Sato (Show Kasamatsu), a young yakuza, and Samantha (Rachel Keller), an American who works as a hostess in a club controlled by the mafia, and who is familiar with the habits and customs of this underworld.
Let’s admit that if the spectacular and very tense investigation of Tokyo Vice keeps us spellbound, the series fascinates us above all by the elegance with which it depicts the nightlife of the Japanese capital, extremely believable on screen.
Winning return for Michael Mann on the small screen
This feat is undoubtedly made possible by the contribution of the legendary Michael Mann, the king of the neo-noir genre who has remained far from the series since Luck in 2011 (OCS), who directed the first episode and set the tone for the visual aesthetic of Tokyo Vice – he has no equivalent when it comes to filming metropolises at night – of which he is also a producer.
The series also marks the first foray into television for acclaimed American playwright, JT Rogers, who won a Tony Award for his play Oslo, adapted into a TV movie by HBO last year and visible in France on OCS. It was he who had the difficult task of bringing Jake Adelstein’s book to the screen, and we appreciate that he takes the time to immerse us alongside a « outsider » learning the codes of a country that is not his own.
The immersion is all the more complete as the Japanese actors are excellent, starting with the very charismatic Ken Watanabe (well known to fans of Christopher Nolan), perfect for supporting the baby face of Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver, West Side Story), who obviously spent a lot of time learning Japanese for the purposes of the series.
And the supporting roles are not left out, since we find in Tokyo Vice Franco-Swiss Ella Rumpf (Grave by Julia Ducournau, 2016) or even Rachel Keller, the protege of the brilliant Noah Hawley (Fargo on Netflix, Legion on Disney+). And obviously, we weren’t the only ones to be captivated by this twilight and tension-filled adaptation: the series has already been renewed for a second season by HBO Max in the United States.
Discover the event series Tokyo Vicefrom September 15 only on CANAL+.