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Post by artraveler on Apr 8, 2022 10:06:43 GMT -8
This review covers everything I've seen so far except the implicit racism of many Japanese and Asians in general. There are some insults in Japanese that don't translate to English that are used in the first three episodes, and I'm sure I missed some others. My very limited Japanese is mostly swear words I learned from my father in the 50s. So far the show is interesting and I'll follow it for a while. www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/fascinating_crime_series_emtokyo_viceem_debuts_on_hbo_max_.html |
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,238
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 9, 2022 12:36:50 GMT -8
Hmmm. Sounds intriguing. I don't offhand see a way to watch it other than through HBO Max. You can get a free trial but it sounds kind of funky the way they are doing this. But I think you can just go month-to-month on the $9.00 ad-supported plan.
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Ahh....Note that you can add the HBO Max channel on your Roku and launch it. You can watch the first episode of Tokyo Vice (and some other series) without signing up. Watching that first episode now.
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Very early impressions: Overwrought soundtrack. The main yute character I don't particularly like and certainly (as yet) haven't come to care about. But it does also star Ken Watanabe which is a big plus.
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The kid lacks charisma. In place of acting we get lots of fancy camera work. The first and only good scene was about 1/3 of the way into it when the yute was sitting in front of the bosses during an interview at the newspaper. We'll see if they can string a few more like this together.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,238
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Post by Brad Nelson on Apr 9, 2022 18:21:31 GMT -8
I finished the first episode. The actors in this aren't compelling. I've seen a lot of Japanese movies so maybe this kind of stuff, if seen for the first time, is compelling to some. But to me it was so much of "been there, done that...and not half as well." Granted, there are interesting aspects such as that the Japanese media is as conformist as every other element in Japan. But the newsroom scenes themselves were bland. And the technique of the Japanese sometimes slipping into Engrish meant the subtitles went away...and I often couldn't understand a word the Japanese was saying. Lifson excelled at writing a review that wasn't really a review. He just described what was in it without commenting on its merits. Well, I don't do that. That's a wimpy way to do "reviews." No doubt if you stay with a series like this it can build into something. Maybe this one does. But I saw absolutely nothing in this that would have me spring for an HBO Max subscription. While watching this I kept pining to watch Robert Mitchum in The Yakuza. And this I would highly recommend instead of watching this HBO series. Also, the service is subpar. I quit out of HBO Max at one point to look at something else. When I came back to Tokyo Vice it did not pick up where I left off. Very amateurish of the service. |
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