Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 28 May

Tokyo Vice (Rogers, 2022-24)

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Before the main course I thought I would share this com­ment from sub­scriber SP. (The con­text is my review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and the extent to which it com­ments, or not, on Australia.) They say:

I would add one more allu­sion you may have missed out­side of an Australian con­text – the Stolen Generations: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chil­dren who were kid­napped by the Crown and taken from their mob as recently as the 70s. With that lens, it feels like Miller is try­ing to show white Australia a taste of this trauma as Furiosa nev­er gives up on the jour­ney home (the way she car­ries her land was par­tic­u­larly poignant)

I would add some­thing that I saw when I was pre­par­ing for Friday night’s seg­ment with Emile Donovan on RNZ but failed to include in the con­ver­sa­tion – that the act­or play­ing Furiosa’s moth­er, Charlee Fraser, is indi­gen­ous (Awabakal) which makes the ‘Green Place’ that Furiosa is kid­napped from even more of a paradise.

Once a month I write a brief piece for RNZ called “What We’re Watching”. The fea­ture is shared among four of us and we try and dig deep­er into the stream­ing offers to identi­fy qual­ity that may have been missed first time around.

My selec­tion this week is Tokyo Vice. Here are some choice extracts from the column. (Please read the whole thing so we can get our stats up and they’ll let us keep doing them.)

It was the name Michael Mann that attrac­ted me to Tokyo Vice, a noir thrill­er based on the 2009 mem­oir by Jake Adelstein – the first American journ­al­ist to work for a major Japanese newspaper.

Mann is one of the greatest movie dir­ect­ors around – respons­ible for clas­sics like The Last of the Mohicans, Heat and the first Hannibal Lector film, Manhunter – but he has­n’t been involved in much tele­vi­sion since he pro­duced Miami Vice in the 80s.

To have him actu­ally behind the cam­era for the pilot epis­ode, as well as exec­ut­ive pro­du­cer, means that Tokyo Vice has a big head start on the competition.

Ansel Elgort plays Adelstein. He’s ambi­tious and impa­tient which gets him into trouble in the deeply tra­di­tion­al and hier­arch­ic­al world of Japan’s biggest paper, the Meicho Shimbun.

One of the sources he cul­tiv­ates is a hard-boiled cop on the Yakuza beat, played with delight­ful world-weariness by Academy Award-nominee Ken Watanabe.

There are two sea­sons of Tokyo Vice and no imme­di­ate signs of a third.

Where to watch Tokyo Vice

Aotearoa: Streaming on TVNZ+ (free with ads)

Australia and Canada: Season One avail­able for digit­al pur­chase (Apple)

Ireland: Streaming on Sky

USA: Streaming on Max

UK: Streaming on BBC iPlayer (free) or Sky

Further listening

Coincidentally, the real Jake Adelstein was inter­viewed by Susie Ferguson on RNZ Saturday Mornings last week­end. He has a new book out, Tokyo Noir.

I hate to cri­ti­cise my col­leagues, but Susie and the web item both men­tion that Tokyo Vice is an HBO Max pro­duc­tion but neg­lect to point New Zealand listen­ers to where they might be able to watch it them­selves. Helpful inform­a­tion, espe­cially if you enjoyed the interview.

Finally, anoth­er plug for my appear­ance on Nights last Friday: Furiosa, You Can Go Now!, and a quick plug for the Aussie clas­sic Death in Brunswick which is stream­ing for free on brolly.