Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Giri/Haji’ On Netflix, Where A Tokyo Cop Travels To London To Find His Gangster Brother

Yakuzas are Japan’s version of America’s organized crime “families,” who deal in seedy and illegal trade and have engaged in deadly wars with each other. The new BBC/Netflix series Giri/Haji is about a Tokyo cop who travels to London to find his brother and cut off a burgeoning war between these families. Read on for more…

GIRI/HAJI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In London, we see a Japanese business securities analyst at his desk. He then leaves his building and goes to his amazing apartment with the spectacular view. He pours himself a drink; he leaves it when there’s a knock on the door. We see a flash, and the same glass is now next to an evidence marker.

The Gist: In Tokyo, a well-dressed man is eating dinner and on the phone, talking about the crime scene photos of the man, who was stabbed in the back with an ancient sword. As he’s talking about the case, he and most of the people in the restaurant are killed by a drive-by shooter.

This looks like it might be the start of a war between Tokyo’s yakuza families, who have been at relative peace for years. The next morning, Detective Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira) is pulled into the case on his day off, mainly because he’s familiar with the yakuza wars. He knows that rival family heads Endo (Katsuya Kobayashi) and Fukuhara (Masahiro Motoki) have been at odds before, but Endo claims to know nothing about why Fukuhara’s men were killed in that restaurant.

That night, as he’s dealing with his aging parents, stressed out wife Rei (Yûko Nakamura) and rebellious daughter Taki (Aoi Okuyama), Fukuhara come out of hiding and drops by his apartment in the middle of the night. Apparently, the man in London that was killed was Endo’s nephew, and the sword belonged to Fukuhara. But he claimed he had nothing to do with it, and someone is trying to spark a war between the yakuzas. The last person who had the sword was Kenzo’s brother Yuto (Yôsuke Kubozuka), whom Kenzo presumed was dead.

Shocked to know that his brother is still alive, it sparks memories of their once-close bond as well as some of the not-so-ethical things Kenzo did to save his brother’s skin before he disappeared. Kenzo’s boss appears and tells him he needs to go to London and track his brother down to keep this war from escalating.

When he gets to London, he gets stonewalled as he gathers evidence, and he encounters two people: Sarah (Kelly Macdonald), a Metropolitan Police detective who is the instructor of the forensics course Kenzo is taking as a cover, and Rodney (Will Sharpe), a Japanese-British rent boy who helps Kenzo get into a pachinko parlor where he hears a story of a very violent yakuza member, who he imagines is Yuto.

Our Take: Giri/Haji (Subtitled Duty/Shame) aired on BBC Two in October, and you’d be hard pressed to tell that it’s a British production, as it spends as much time in Tokyo as it does in London. Created by Joe Barton (Humans) it’s a fascinating combination of cop drama, family drama, and fish-out-of-water drama that was more compelling to watch than we anticipated it would be.

The first episode gets into the story in a bit of a convoluted way, trying to introduce its audience to the idea of the yakuzas and the history between them. Because Barton can’t spend all that much time on it, the machinations that get Kenzo to London are a bit confusing. Who attacked who and just what was Kenzo and Yuto’s relationship to these families? What we did appreciate, though, is that Barton gave us flashbacks to Yuto and Kenzo’s close relationship (in black and white scenes) as well as the incident that split the two of them up (in letterbox).

Despite all the complications in Kenzo’s life that we’re not sure how they’ll affect his time in London — namely his complex home life — seeing that Kenzo isn’t some tortured lone wolf is refreshing in these kinds of shows. Putting him thousands of miles away makes him a lone wolf, though, so we get a bit of both worlds with Kenzo being disconnected from his home and in a world that’s completely foreign to him. Hira does a great job of showing both the determination Kenzo has to find his brother and make sure his name is cleared as well as the bewilderment around the circumstances that brought him to London in the first place.

Barton is also interested in giving us some insight into Sarah and Rodney, as well, as we see Rodney coldly kiss off a paramour and Sarah have an awkward blind date with an online match that leads to awkward sex. We know that Sarah will factor more into Kenzo’s life as he realizes she’s investigating the murder of Endo’s nephew, and that may have romantic implications. Macdonald, as usual, is magnetic, even playing the shy detective, and the scenes featuring her and Hira are the highlights of the first episode. And there’s more intrigue to come, as we get into the shady world of business partners Abbott (Charlie Creed-Miles) and Ellis (Justin Long), and Kenzo and Sarah grow closer.

Sex and Skin: Besides Sarah having sex with her hairy blind date, nothing.

Parting Shot: As Kenzo searches the apartment of the murder victim, we see that he’s in the sights of a sniper’s rifle.

Sleeper Star: We liked Aoi Okuyama as Taki, and she seems to have been given enough story in the first episode that will lead us to see more of her as the action shifts back to Tokyo.

Most Pilot-y Line: Sarah gets a snake dropped into her mail basket at home, and we’re not sure why.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The first episode of Giri/Haji sets up an intriguing mystery/family drama that spans continents and mashes together two very different cultures. Plus it has Kelly Macdonald being very nerdy, which is fun to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Giri/Haji On Netflix