The live-action adaptation of Sega’s “Like a Dragon” video game series, and the first since the 2007 film “Like a Dragon” by Takashi Miike, was one of the most anticipated series of the year, considering the popularity of the game. What the creators presented on Amazon Prime is a series that borrows the characters and setting of the original 2005 Yakuza game as well as its 2016 remake Yakuza Kiwami but the story is a loose adaptation and follows an original plot, though some major plot-points are retained. Let us see how they fared.
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The story unfolds in two parallel axes. In the first one, in 1995, Kazuma and three other youths from the orphanage he grew up in, Yumi, Akira, and Miho, successfully heist a local arcade, only to realize it is one actually run by the the Dojima Family, a powerful yakuza organization that rules Kamurocho. It is also soon revealed that the man who runs the orphanage, Shintaro, had some connections with the Yakuza in the past, which is the only reason Dojima, the boss, allows the four to live, if Kazuma manages to win an underground fight. Akira, aka Nishiki, on the other hand, finds another way into the yakuza, while the girls are soon forced to work in a hostess bar, in order to pay their side of the debt their actions occurred.
In 2005, Kazuma has just been released from prison, having the title of oyagoroshi, meaning someone who killed his ‘father’, while Nishiki has become one of the bosses of the Dojima family. Yumi runs her own hostess club, although she is always on the search for another girl from the orphanage that left years ago, Aiko. Meanwhile, someone steals a huge amount from the Omi, an opposing yakuza faction, while a local serial killer has reappeared, killing yakuza left and right carving their bodies with an inverted pentagram.
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Sean Crouch and Yugo Nakamura attempted a rather difficult feat, of having the series unfold simultaneously in two timelines, and for the first two episodes, it actually worked quite well. The introduction of the main characters and the way they got implicated with the yakuza and the mystery regarding how they got where they are in the second axes are quite intriguing, with the parallel moving rather well. Particularly the various questions that are posed due to the time difference, especially regarding how the protagonists got where they are in 2005, adds a very appealing sense of mystery that definitely retains interest, actually for the majority of the series.
Gradually, however, and perhaps in an effort to stay at least somewhat close to the original material (I have not played the game btw) the filmmakers start introducing more and more arcs, and, inevitably, more and more characters, the majority of which are not particularly well written or implemented. Thus, the quality starts deteriorating, although the truth is that it never falls very low, despite some issues with the pacing and the editing.
There are a number of reasons for this. For starters, the casting and acting. Ryoma Takeuchi as Kazuma is impressive in his desperation and later naivety, while retaining a very appealing persona of the tough guy who is also sensitive throughout the series, not to mention he looks the role to the fullest. Kento Kaku as Kishi exhibits the most impactful transformation between the two axes, him being a lowly ‘number 2′ in 1995 and a fearsome boss on the second. Yuumi Kawai as Yumi is also quite good as the naive little girl and the disillusioned madame in the second, with her obsession with Aiko and the issues it creates for her being also impressively portrayed. Masaya Kato as Dojima plays the Big Boss with a very fitting exhuberance, cementing the prowess in the department.
The second is the audiovisual approach, with the series boasting a rather big budget, which was implemented ideally in the particular aspects. The action scenes, which are occasionally quite bloody, the polished presentation of the world of yakuza and of the hostesses, including the clothes, and the depiction of Kamurocho all are quite impressive, in a trait that also adds to the entertainment the series offers.
Although the title has a number of serious issues, in the end, and perhaps especially for the viewer who does not know the original, “Like a Dragon: Yakuza” emerges as an entertaining series, with the cast and acting and the production values carrying it above mediocrity
