Arty, ambitious and a bit bonkers
Anglo-japanese thriller Giri/haji (BBC Two) had a title that roughly translates as Duty/ Shame. The UK camera crew apparently found it a struggle to pronounce on-set, though, so nicknamed it “Gary/harry”. Ah, makes you proud to be British.
In a bravura, near-wordless opening sequence, we witnessed a brutal stabbing in London, followed by a balletic drive-by shooting at a Tokyo restaurant, both of which threatened the fragile truce between the Japanese capital’s rival Yakuza gangs.
World-weary detective and family man Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira) was duly dispatched to London in search of his younger brother Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka) – a low-level mobster, long presumed dead but now rumoured to have resurfaced in the UK and be implicated in the connected killings.
As Kenzo prowled neon-lit Soho, slugging back whisky and looking for clues like a film noir gumshoe, he tentatively formed a makeshift team with ostracised Met officer DC Sarah Weitzmann (Kelly Macdonald) and amusingly brash, half-japanese rent boy Rodney (scene-stealer Will Sharpe). Both, naturally, had secrets of their own. Weitzmann got a snake posted through her front door as a threat but held a lighter beneath the letterbox until it slithered back out. A top tip, should you ever need it.
A co-production between the BBC and Netflix spanning two continents, this wasn’t your regular police procedural – there were subtitles and handsomely designed chapter headings for the first 22 minutes. It was impressionistic, playful and unashamedly arty, using animé sequences, chiaroscuro flashbacks, slow-motion, split-screen and stretched aspect ratio. The multistranded, pan-global plotting and Tarantino-esque stylistic flourishes rewarded close attention.
The opening episode was ambitious and lifted further by fine performances from Macdonald, Sharpe and the Japanese cast, alongside fluid, virtuosic direction from Julian Farino.
Especially poignant was Kenzo’s tender relationship with his troubled daughter Taki (Aoi Okuyama), who is surely destined to play a larger role. Most importantly, though, writer Joe Barton’s intriguing story immediately exerted its grip. This bold, bewitching and slightly bonkers eight-parter could be something truly special. Giri/haji ★★★★★