Tokyo Vice is visually stunning, but it suffers from major pacing issues.
Tokyo Vice, HBO Max’s new criminal drama series, begins with a TV cliche that I’m sick of seeing: an opening sequence that flashes forward to a high-octane scene near the end of the episode in an attempt to catch viewers.
I can think of three recent shows that have done it off the top of my head (WeCrashed, 1883, and The White Lotus — certainly you can think of more as well). It’s meant to be exciting, but it frequently comes out as a cheap and clumsy method to build tension.
Mike White, the creator of The White Lotus, told Vulture that he used a mysterious dead body as bait because people didn’t watch his prior series. Producers believe they must spoon-feed audiences a hint about the goal because they either don’t believe the viewers to follow along on the voyage or don’t believe their story can hook viewers from the start.
Because the show builds up to such a glacial pace that the payoff sometimes feels like it will never arrive, Tokyo Vice opens at the conclusion to reassure the viewer that the plot is going someplace.
Tokyo Vice suffers from the infamous “ten-hour-movie-itis” of the streaming era, in which writers and filmmakers believe that the length of a TV program allows them to tell a tale in greater detail, but in reality, they’re just bloating a movie script in a way that just doesn’t lend itself to episodic TV.
The setup would take roughly 30 minutes if Tokyo Vice was the movie it was initially envisioned as (Daniel Radcliffe was attached to star in the mid-2010s).
However, after two episodes of orbiting each other, young American newspaper editor Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) and veteran Japanese organized crime detective Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) start to work together to solve a string of mysteriously connected crimes in the third episode of Tokyo Vice.
Because it’s executive-produced by Michael Mann, the outstanding director and man most strongly connected with the ” Vice” title construction, Tokyo Vice is enjoyable even when it moves at a leisurely pace.
Mann directs the pilot, and his grasp of thriller technique is on full display. Mann is the executive producer of the famous crime series Miami Vice and the director of superb midnight thrillers like Heat and Collateral. Even when there isn’t much going on, he uses all of his hallmark tools to create a sense of energy — portable cameras, fast cuts, off-center composition, and rich sound design, to name a few.
Jake gets a job as a police beat reporter at Tokyo’s biggest newspaper in the first episode, and there’s a four-minute scenario in which Jake passes an exam. It’s needlessly long, yet because of Mann’s camera movement, it’s never boring. And the director who is most known for filming cities at night captures Tokyo’s busy, neon-lit streets beautifully.
The pilot’s main goal is to establish a tone, which it does admirably. The directors of later episodes don’t quite match Mann’s enthusiasm, but the story’s pace has picked up enough by that point to provide some intrinsic impetus.
Tokyo Vice is based on the true story of Jake Adelstein, a white American reporter who traveled to Japan as a young man and spent years covering organized crime in Tokyo. The show follows Adelstein as he distinguishes himself as a hotshot reporter in 1999.
He’s brash, American style of doing things conflicts with the Japanese newspaper’s culture, but he’s a bright, dogged reporter dedicated to uncovering the truth.
He discovers evidence linking a series of violent episodes on Tokyo’s streets to a dodgy lending organization, and his research brings him to his mentor, Hiroto Katagiri, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department officer who, like him, is frustrated by the institution’s rigid cultural restrictions.
Katagiri is attempting to prevent a battle between two yakuza clans from erupting and enlists the services of the scoop-hungry young reporter to help him get the additional information and act as a go-between between the gangs.
Sato (Show Kasamatsu), a youthful yakuza who isn’t sure if the gangster life is for him, is Adelstein’s tour guide around the criminal underworld. Kasamatsu is the show’s biggest surprise. His cheekbones are reminiscent of Mads Mikkelsen’s, and his vulnerable eyes can turn steely in an instant.
Jake and Sato become friends, but they both have feelings for Samantha (Rachel Keller), a fierce American nightclub host with great goals and even bigger secrets. Jake’s editor Emi (Rinko Kikuchi), who, like Jake, is an outsider at the cis-gendered, chauvinistic tabloid, assists Jake with his reporting.
Adelstein is played well by Elgort. There’s something boyishly endearing about him, but also something off-putting, which I admit is influenced by the sexual abuse claims leveled against him after the release of Tokyo Vice.
His demeanor fits the character, who is talented at his job yet arrogant and entitled. “You think the rules are different because you’re a foreigner,” Emi chastises him, while another colleague at the publication says, “You’re an American, therefore you think you’re more talented than you are.”
He loses critical information on multiple occasions because he isn’t paying attention.
He’s a foreigner with a fiery personality that conflicts with the genteel culture he’s attempting to integrate into, which both helps and impedes him in his quest to become a truth-telling journalist. Every character on the program is attempting to find their place in a culture in which they do not naturally belong.
Tokyo Vice has certain narrative issues that are as obvious as a flashing neon sign, but its slick style and good performers keep it enjoyable until the tale heats up. It’s quite engaging once it does. It simply takes longer than it should, and by that time you may have given up. A fast forward to the finish won’t help with pacing issues.
The series premieres on HBO Max on Thursday, April 7th (first three episodes)
Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller, and Show Kasamatsu star.
Who is the perpetrator: J.T. Rogers (Oslo), executive producer-director Michael Mann, journalist Jake Adelstein
Fans of Michael Mann’s crime novels and neon lights will enjoy this book.
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