The Life Of The Yakuza Included In The HBO Max Serial, Tokyo Vice

JAKARTA - HBO Max is reportedly producing a television series about the yakuza adapted from the Tokyo Vice memoir released in 2010.

Previously, there was a series The Sopranos in 1999 which caught the attention of the American public. The story of criminal organizations and the life of the yakuza is something that has never been witnessed.

Tokyo Vice tells the story of American journalist Jake Adelstein (played by Ansel Elgort) who is transferred to Tokyo to write about corruption incidents. But the deeper Adelstein lives, the more he delves into Tokyo's criminal life.

Yakuza is a well-known mafia syndicate in Japan. The presence of the yakuza inspired filmmakers to tell stories about the underground life, although on the other hand, the yakuza members began to decline since 2011.

Launching Forbes today, Friday, December 11, in 2018, the number of members of the Japanese syndicate became 30,500, a small number compared to the 1960s where they had 183,000 members.

Besides that, another yakuza problem is the difficulty of finding a hiding place. While they are also looking for a place to ask for payment it gets harder because they have to fight the big boss.

Tokyo Vice will be played by Ansel Elgort, Ken Watanabe, Rachel Keller, Ella Rumpf, Rinko Kikuchi. Kayo Washio of studio WOWOW will direct the series adapted from the book Tokyo Vice.

“Tokyo Vice is a story that takes a creative talent pool to bring it to life. WOWOW is proud to be involved in a series that is very popular to us, literally, and figuratively, and to have a very talented team that put it all together, "Washio quoted Deadline as saying.

The shooting for Tokyo Vice only resumed after it was stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.