It’s not a new film, but Tokyo Vice can stand head and shoulders above most else of late, medium be damned, from one indisputable factor: Michael Mann, for whom its pilot is the first time behind camera since 2015’s Blackhat. (Guess how we feel.) Even accounting for COVID delays Mann took quite a while shooting this shorter project, all the while talking about it no less intimately than he would a big-screen epic. Add the factor of a major visual artist and superb crime storyteller shepherding a new project in one of the world’s most varied, enticing cities and, well…
Anyway. A new Michael Mann project debuts on April 7 and we have a trailer for the series in toto, adapting Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction account of his time covering crime as the first non-Japanese reporter for Tokyo’s publication Yomiuri Shimbun. Ansel Elgort plays Adelstein, while Ken Watanabe, Rinko Kikuchi, and Rachel Keller also star.
Find the preview below for the series, created, written, and executive produced by J.T. Rogers:
Based on Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe. The drama captures Adelstein’s daily descent into the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo, where nothing and no one is truly what or who they seem.
Tokyo Vice premieres on HBO Max on April 7 with three episodes, followed by two episodes weekly through April 28.