‘Tokyo Vice’ Review: Michael Mann’s Yakuza Series Is Another Captivating & Stylish Venture About Morally Questionable Men

“Gaslit” has a funny way of recalling a dark moment in American history. It takes a step back and asks: what if Watergate was more of a Coen brothers farce than the tense, paranoid ‘70s thrillers that came after it? That air of absurdity, of eccentric morons making plans that were far from airtight, introduces the amusing disgust of this story.

Selome Hailu George Lopez and Mayan Lopez’s NBC comedy pilot “Lopez vs. Lopez” has cast Laci Mosley and Kiran Deol in recurring roles and set Kelly Park to direct, Variety has learned exclusively.The multi-cam pilot starring the Lopezes is described as a working-class family comedy about dysfunction, reconnection and all the pain and joy in between.Mosley will play Brookie, Mayan’s co-worker and best friend who always knows what’s trending (and sometimes it’s her feet pics).

The story of how Ken Watanabe landed the role of police detective Hiroto Katagiri in the new HBO Max series “Tokyo Vice” isn’t what you’d expect. The Oscar nominee for “The Last Samurai” met the series’ showrunner, J.T.

Naman Ramachandran The BBC has acquired U.K. free-to-air rights of high profile crime drama “Tokyo Vice” (8 x 60’), which has a pilot episode directed by Michael Mann, from Endeavor Content. The BBC has second window rights for the U.K.

The BBC has acquired HBO Max’s Ansel Elgort-starring Tokyo Vice from Endeavor Content.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla Among the chrome skyscrapers and beckoning show lights in Downtown Miami stands The Freedom Tower, a government building with a distinctive Mediterranean flair that processed Cuban refugees who fled the nearby Caribbean nation to pass the time between Fidel Castro and democracy.Cuban-born actor Yul Vázquez was one of those thousands of exiles who found themselves in that immigrant wave’s Ellis Island, waiting for rations of powdered milk, cans of SPAM and surplus eggs, holding his mother’s hand next to his sister.Everyone in that tower thought the situation was temporary. That was in 1971.

Michael Mann (“Collateral,” “Ali”) fans can rejoice that he’s finally back with the HBO Max crime series “Toyko Vice.” In the series, which Mann produces and directs the excellent pilot of (read our review here), we get to see the legendary filmmaker wade into the waters of cops and crooks yet again. Set in Japan, the series focuses on an American crime reporter (Ansel Elgort) who attempts to embed himself in both the worlds of Japanese police and the criminal syndicate known as the Yakuza.

Naman Ramachandran London-based Endeavor Content has closed several international territories on high profile crime drama “Tokyo Vice” (8 x 60’), which has a pilot episode directed by Michael Mann.Handling global sales on the project, Endeavor Content has inked deals with Crave (Canada), Canal Plus (France), Paramount Plus (Australia) and OSN Plus (West Asia and Northern Africa).The series was commissioned by HBO Max in the U.S. and by Wowow, Japan’s leading premium pay-TV broadcaster, with Endeavor as co-producer. It will also debut on HBO Max (Latin America and EMEA) and HBO Go (Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong) and Starzplay (Austria, Germany, German-speaking Switzerland, Ireland and the U.K.).

TOKYO -- The HBO Max drama series “Tokyo Vice” takes the perennial story of a novice reporter on the police beat but places it in the bustling exotic landscape of the Japanese capital of the 1990s.Ansel Elgort of “West Side Story” immersed himself in the leading role not only by learning Japanese so he could speak like a native, but also learning the ropes of an investigative reporter, interviewing people, getting quotes and writing up a story.“It was really cool,” he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.The characters had to feel real, not just be archetypes, Elgort said.The series, which premieres Thursday, weaves in allusions to the Japanese film genre depicting organized crime, called “yakuza,” as well as exploring the glitzy night life of hostess bars, where powerful corporate Japanese men rub shoulders with their underworld counterparts.“You see the yakuza characters. You see them as a family, too.

Of all the many things that go fast in Michael Bay's pedal-to-the-metal retro action thriller “Ambulance” — the speeding EMS van, the army of police cars trailing it, Bay's ever-swooping, whooshing camera — nothing goes by in more of a blur than the exposition.Here is Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen), a former Marine, on a frustrating phone call trying to get insurance approval for his wife's lifesaving surgery. He's getting nowhere so, with a kiss for his wife (Moses Ingram) and toddler son, Will rushes across town — this is Los Angeles — to meet his brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal). They haven't seen each other for some time but brief flashbacks to their childhood suggest a deep bond.

Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers knew why he wanted to be part of a TV series adaptation of Jake Adelstein’s time as a crime beat reporter in Japan.

Starzplay Acquires HBO’s Max’s Ken Watanabe Crime Thriller Series ‘Tokyo Vice’

Eiza Gonzalez walks the red carpet in a chic look for the premiere of her new movie, Ambulance, on Tuesday night (April 5) in Miami, Fla.

Brooke Mazurek It is an impossible game I keep asking Gloria and Emilio Estefan to play, the game of hypothetical “what-ifs.” Although the husband and wife duo are currently in Vero Beach, Fla., where they have a getaway home and resort, their focus is set squarely on Miami.For the better portion of five decades, the Magic City is the place the Estefans have called home, and during the “It’s a Wonderful Life” rabbit hole I’ve asked them to spiral into, we’re playing out who Gloria and Emilio — and the city of Miami — might have become had the most important couple in the history of Latin music not stayed rooted there.“What if you’d left and moved on?” I ask them.Gloria and Emilio are, after all, at a point in their lives when they’re able to tap into the gift of perspective. Time has passed, more than 100 million albums have sold, 38 hits have climbed the Billboard charts, Gloria has won eight Grammys and Emilio, 20, and two Presidential Medals of Freedom received.

“TokyoVice“ is an HBO Max companion piece to the Michael Mann-produced TV series “Miami Vice,” which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. That show somehow hasn’t yet been revived beyond a single Mann-directed 2006 feature film, and now “Tokyo Vice” even boasts Mann as both its executive producer and its pilot-episode director.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticOver cigarettes in a Tokyo nightclub, a newbie crime reporter eager to make a mark is speaking to his source. Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), an American who’s become fluent in Japanese to work as a journalist far from home, uses the language to ask his source Jin Miyamoto (Hideaki Itō) whether the city of Tokyo has officially recorded murder cases at all. Miyamoto, a corrupt cop, is briefly caught up in all the flashes of distraction the nightclub has to offer — bright lights, music, liquor on order and young women ambiently available — before explaining the situation to this outsider.

“Tokyo Vice”Thursday, April 7, HBO MaxMichael Mann, the visionary filmmaker behind “Heat” and “The Insider,” returns to television for “Tokyo Vice.” (Yes, Mann was also one of the people behind “Miami Vice.” But there is no connection between the two beyond the title.) Based on the 2009 book of the same name by Jake Adelstein (played in the show by, um, Ansel Elgort), who in 1993 was hired by one of Japan’s largest newspapers to be its first non-Japanese reporter. Adelstein is soon taken under the wing of a veteran vice cop (Ken Watanabe) and exposed to Tokyo’s dangerous underbelly.

“The Flight Attendant,” which returns for its second season on April 21. Then there’s the long-awaited return of Bill Hader’s “Barry” on April 24 on HBO and HBO Max, as well as Season 3 of “The Black Lady Sketch Show” on April 8.In terms of new originals, “The Wire” and “The Deuce” creator David Simon is back with the new series “We Own This City” on April 25, which chronicles the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force.