[TV]
TOKYO VICE
Men without hats: Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe.
Alamy
Going batty
Good cop bad cop?
★★★★
OUT 15 MAY (STARZPLAY) EPISODES VIEWED 2 OF 8
SHOWRUNNER J.T. Rogers
CAST Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller, Rinko Kikuchi
PLOT Tokyo, 1999. Recent American graduate Jake Adelstein (Elgort) gets a job as a crime reporter at a major Japanese newspaper, the paper’s first foreign-born journalist. With the aid of a veteran detective (Watanabe) and a local ‘hostess’ (Keller), he soon becomes embroiled in a seething criminal netwrok, run by the yakuza.
THE STORY OF an intrepid reporter facing down the malignancy of organised crime is hardly fresh territory. Yet the concentrated power of Tokyo Vice, the new crime series starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe among a constellation of excellent supporting roles, is such that the material feels lively with intrigue, detail and dark wit. It’s also as visually appealing as it is smart, from the imagery of its opening credits — featuring close-ups of sinuously moving yakuza tattoos — to its pilot episode, which was directed by executive producer and filmmaker Michael Mann.