Tokyo Vice

Our Review

Michael Mann’s return to crime serials, and the best journalism drama of the decade. Based on Jake Adelstein’s memoir, Ansel Elgort plays the real Adelstein — the first Western journalist at a major Japanese newspaper — chasing crime stories in 1999 Tokyo and falling into the orbit of the yakuza, led by a mid-level boss (Ken Watanabe, magnificent as a lawless man with a code) who becomes his source and his curse.

The production shoots Tokyo like a character — neon alleys, hostess bars, the fluorescent newsroom where Adelstein’s editors teach him the bushido of Japanese journalism. The middle episodes deliver Mann-level tension; the hostess-club storyline with Rachel Keller’s Samantha is a whole noir in miniature. Season 2 expands the war and ends the story properly. This is adult crime drama — patient, violent, morally complicated — and nobody watched it, which is the crime.

Verdict: Watch it. The best thing Michael Mann has made this century.