The Big Picture
Tokyo Vice’s second season has completed filming before the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, but it won’t be released until the strikes are resolved. The series features actors Ansel Elgort and Rachel Keller, who both learned Japanese for their roles. The show is based on journalist Jake Adelstein’s memoir and follows the story of an American reporter immersed in the Japanese underworld and the Yakuza.
Tokyo Vice’s long-awaited second season is in the can. The Michael Mann-produced series completed filming prior to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that currently have productions on hold. Variety reports that principal filming on the season has finished in an interview with Tokyo Vice producer Alex Boden. However, fans of the series shouldn’t plan to watch it any time soon. Boden notes that the series will have a lengthy post-production period, and would prefer that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes be resolved before releasing it, noting that:
“Everyone involved is so proud of the work that they’ve done on this unique show — the writers, of course, but also the actors, we’ve got Ansel Elgort and Rachel Keller, who both spent a lot of time and energy learning Japanese and now speak really good Japanese. So it’d be a shame to have any kind of promotion without being able to celebrate that kind of commitment.”
Actors and writers, of course, will be unable to promote struck projects until the AMPTP recognizes the value of their striking workers and returns to the bargaining table in good faith.
What Is Tokyo Vice?
Image Via HBO Max
Based on journalist Jake Adelstein’s 2009 memoir of the same name (the veracity of which has come into question), Tokyo Vice stars Elgort as a fictionalized version of Adelstein, an American reporter working for a Japanese newspaper. Adelstein becomes fascinated with the Japanese underworld and the organized criminal organization, the Yakuza, that controls it. Over the course of the series, Adelstein encounters a number of figures on either side of the law, including Mormon missionary-turned-club hostess Samantha Porter (Keller), a fellow American expatriate; Yakuza member (and Porter’s lover) Sato (Show Kasamatsu); and veteran organized crime detective Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe). Over time, Adelstein gets deeper and deeper into an investigation of a mysterious death, much to the dismay of his editor, Emi Maruyama (Rinko Kikuchi). The first season ended on a cliffhanger, with Adelstein sharing mysterious footage of a Yakuza murder to Katagiri, and Sato being brutally stabbed by a fellow criminal.
Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch Collider’s interview with Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe below.
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