Tokyo, here we come.
HBO Max’s newly released trailer for its upcoming crime drama Tokyo Vice promises linguistic and cultural barriers will be the least of American journalist Jake Adelstein’s problems as he reports on the corruption within the Vice squad of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
“What’s it like to be a yakuza? I could write about that,” Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) asks Sato (Show Kasamatsu), a Chihara-Kai crime family member, who replies, “Yes, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Tokyo Vice debuts Thursday, April 7 on HBO Max with three episodes, followed by two episodes debuting every Thursday leading up to the finale on April 28.
The series, loosely inspired by the real-life Adelstein’s non-fiction first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, captures the journalist’s daily descent into the “neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo in the late ’90s, where nothing and no one is truly what or who they seem.”
Rounding out the cast are: Ken Watanabe, Rinko Kikuchi, Rachel Keller, Ella Rumpf, Hideaki Ito and Tomohisa Yamashita. Tony-winning playwright J.T. Rogers is showrunner, while Michael Mann directed the pilot and serves as executive producer, alongside Alan Poul, Jake Adelstein, Elgort, Emily Gerson Saines, Brad Kane, Destin Daniel Cretton, Watanabe, Washio and John Lesher.
Japan’s leading premium pay TV broadcaster WOWOW will debut the first episode via its streaming service on April 7 with subsequent episodes recurring every Sunday evening on the WOWOW channel starting on April 24 through June.