![Ansel Elgort in Tokyo Vice](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/tv/2022/05/13/TELEMMGLPICT000295080252_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Tokyo Vice, review: nice city, shame about the Western saviour narrative
This drama series, based on a bestselling memoir, follows an American journalist covering the Japanese capital’s criminal underworld
![Ansel Elgort in Tokyo Vice](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/tv/2022/05/13/TELEMMGLPICT000295080252_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680)
It is no coincidence that Tokyo Vice (Starzplay) summons memories of Miami Vice. Both shows deal with the seedy side of life: drugs, strip clubs, organised crime. Michael Mann, who produced Miami Vice, directs the pilot episode of this new show. Even the music has a tinge of Jan Hammer’s score. And the series opens with the pairing of Ken Watanabe and Ansel Elgort. Are they going to be Japan’s answer to Crockett and Tubbs?
Well, no. Despite all these signifiers, Tokyo Vice tells its story differently. For starters, there is only one lead. Watanabe, a very fine actor, is relegated to a supporting role as a grizzled cop. The star turn is baby-faced Elgort, most recently seen in West Side Story, and here playing an American who moves to Tokyo and lands a prized job as a cub reporter on the city’s most venerable newspaper, covering the crime beat.
The show is based on Jake Adelstein’s memoir, a 2009 bestseller. As Adelstein, Elgort is feverishly bright – impressing everyone with his spoken and written Japanese, he becomes the only Westerner to pass the paper’s entrance examination – and often manically intense. He is frustrated by the rules, which are so strict that the newspaper is run like a cross between an army regiment and a prison. An editor yells at Adelstein for reporting a “murder” – that word can never be used unless the police say so, even when the evidence is undeniable.
The most interesting thing about Tokyo Vice is this glimpse into a culture so different to our own (if we are to take it at face value – some critics have suggested that Adelstein embellished his tales of encounters with the yakuza, although his descriptions of everyday life on the paper seem to have been accepted). But the outsiders’ perspective is also awkward.
In recent years, British audiences have had access to brilliant foreign crime dramas. Watching a show in which the maverick Westerner is the only character with the gumption to challenge the rules and crack the case seems like a throwback. The Japanese reporters are subservient corporate drones, while the Japanese detective who offers to show Adelstein the ropes is an old-school sleazeball. It all feels as dated as Miami Vice’s fashion sense.