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Building upon its stellar 2022 run, this bilingual, shot-on-location crime saga is still somehow one of the most underrated shows right now.
Adapted from journalist Jake Adelstein’s 2009 book of the same name, Tokyo Vice is a tangled knot of uneasy alliances, personal and professional quandaries, and the betrayals and compromises necessary to survive a culture (and underworld) governed by strict codes of conduct.
Once again led by the charismatic duo of Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe as unlikely partners in a war nobody appears capable of winning, creator J.T. Rogers and executive-producer Michael Mann’s Max series stays true to itself in its excellent second season.
The Daily Beast notes it as “The Best Show You’re Not Watching”:
Its title a riff on Mann’s seminal Miami Vice, with which it shares not only a fondness for cops and crooks but a sleek, sensual style laced with sinister menace, Tokyo Vice, which premieres Feb. 8, commences mere moments after the conclusion of its prior 1999-set finale, with Missouri-born Meicho newspaper reporter Jake Adelstein (Elgort) visiting Tokyo detective Hiroto Katagiri (Watanabe) in order to show him a harrowing videotape containing footage of club hostess Polina (Ella Rumpf) being accidentally murdered on board a ship belonging to cutthroat yakuza boss Tozawa (Ayumi Tanida).
Here’s the trailer for season 1:
And season 2:
Based on a true story, the mysteries abound in Tokyo Vice, some contemporary, while others trace back to the series’ inception. Rogers skillfully weaves these enigmas into storylines that don’t neatly conclude but rather coil around, ensnaring characters in unforeseen traps.
Hopefully, this second season can bring in the viewership that this show deserves.
[source:dailybeast]
