“Terrible actions have a mortal price.” The #TokyoVice cast and crew discuss the changing times, extremely high stakes, and more in Season 2. Tokyo Vice is now streaming now on Max.
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TVTranscript
00:00 [dramatic music]
00:01 - There's this underworld of criminals.
00:03 They take advantage of people.
00:04 They kill people.
00:06 - Best analogy for American audiences is the Marines,
00:09 in that you do not question the commander above you,
00:12 and the hierarchy is everything.
00:14 [speaking in Japanese]
00:17 - During our time period, which is 1999 into 2000,
00:24 we go a lot deeper in the ways Yakuza culture
00:27 was developing in terms of resorting to guns,
00:30 in terms of cops finally cracking down.
00:32 Deputy Superintendent Degatta
00:34 from the National Police Force has come in with new ideas
00:36 on how to defeat the Yakuza.
00:38 [speaking in Japanese]
00:41 - The Hishinuma raid in episode three
00:50 really is our first big set piece,
00:52 and we folded in the stunt coordinator
00:54 and started working with Miki Maia.
00:56 [speaking in Japanese]
00:59 - She was just so fluid and fast, it was remarkable.
01:11 [speaking in Japanese]
01:14 - Because of the government crackdown,
01:16 the Yakuza Gumi had to shape-shift
01:20 and insinuate themselves more into legitimate businesses.
01:23 I wanted Tozawa and his men to look like
01:26 Goldman Sachs bankers with guns,
01:28 because they are changing the rules of the Yakuza.
01:30 [speaking in Japanese]
01:33 - We specifically had Ashida with his back
01:42 towards the long hallway,
01:43 so that we could have Tozawa looming in the background,
01:46 coming and then reveal him standing over Ashida.
01:49 [speaking in Japanese]
01:52 - And that Yakuza summit on the rooftop
01:54 is when you finally figure out what Tozawa's been up to.
01:56 It was all a trap.
01:58 [speaking in Japanese]
02:01 - The real iconic moment for me
02:06 was when all the Oebuns are excused
02:08 and you have the whole city in the background,
02:11 the two bosses, who's gonna be the king of Tokyo?
02:14 - A war is coming, a Yakuza war.
02:17 Guns are anathema from a moral standpoint for the Yakuza,
02:20 but finally Ashida's like, "Yeah, we need guns."
02:23 [speaking in Japanese]
02:26 - We went to Nagano,
02:27 we went up into the mountains in the snow.
02:29 We would finally be able to get outside of Tokyo
02:32 and open up the scope of the show a little bit.
02:35 - Just the scenery is really refreshing to see
02:37 after shooting so many days in Tokyo.
02:39 We took time finding the right location
02:42 for them walking in the woods.
02:44 [speaking in Japanese]
02:49 [speaking in Japanese]
02:52 - And then we found a really nice location with a tunnel
02:54 that really works for the scene.
02:56 [speaking in Japanese]
02:58 - And then the other thing that was really important
03:00 was trying to ground that whole sequence in Sato,
03:03 seeing it through his eyes as Sato starts to realize
03:05 that Hayama is a real problem.
03:07 - There's a lot of death in this season.
03:11 The midpoint of season two is an assassination attempt
03:15 on Ashida in Samantha's Club.
03:17 We shot it across three days.
03:19 It was very carefully storyboarded, very carefully planned.
03:22 - We shot it quite slowly,
03:24 which is the best way I think to capture
03:26 those intimate character moments
03:28 inside of some big action sequence.
03:31 [speaking in Japanese]
03:34 - There were a number of gun battles that erupted
03:36 more in the early '90s than in the late '90s,
03:38 so we're sliding the timeline a little bit.
03:40 - One of the challenges was how much we should do on set
03:45 and how much we should do on post.
03:47 Some scenes we did with scrapes
03:49 and then the other parts we did with the blue screen.
03:52 It's a balance between being efficient and effective.
03:56 [speaking in Japanese]
03:59 [gunshots]
04:06 [speaking in Japanese]
04:12 [speaking in Japanese]
04:15 - As far as how he dies, that was all on Ashun-san.
04:26 He had a very specific idea
04:28 of how he wants to fight against those gunmen.
04:31 - Especially for actors who play Yakuza,
04:34 it's a great honor to have a good death.
04:36 [gunshots]
04:39 - I want our audience to grieve
04:41 and be shocked when people pass.
04:43 [speaking in Japanese]
04:46 - And we all know it's Tozawa,
04:47 but of course he's left no fingerprints.
04:49 [speaking in Japanese]
04:54 - He immediately understands that Sato is beloved
05:06 within the Chiharukai
05:08 and therefore sets out to make him his enemy.
05:10 [speaking in Japanese]
05:13 - Terrible actions have a moral price.
05:34 If people don't die,
05:35 the price of people's actions isn't clear.
05:38 - This is only the first step
05:39 in whatever Tozawa was planning.
05:41 [gunshot]
05:43 [explosion]
05:45 [whoosh]
05:46 [explosion]
05:47 [whoosh]
05:48 [whoosh]
05:49 [whoosh]
05:50 [whoosh]
05:52 [silence]
05:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]