Giri/haji who put the snake in the letterbox

Created by Humans’ Joe Barton and produced by the same company who made Chernobyl, to say Anglo-Japanese crime drama Giri/Haji was eagerly awaited is like saying chocolate is quite nice.

I’m a huge lover of the Japanese aesthetic and the country’s culture, so when it was announced that this was coming, I could hardly contain myself. I mean, what wasn’t to like? The neon-lit backstreets juxtaposed with the wet, miserable streets of London? A surly, taciturn old-school noir detective trudging both of those kinds of streets?

YES PLEASE.

And so it started in brilliant fashion, entirely justifying my excitement.

A Japanese man, stabbed to death in a London condo. This man’s murder had repercussions in Tokyo because it turns out that the dead man in London was Yakuza. Another man eating in a restaurant in Tokyo was subsequently gunned down spectacularly (as was half of the rest of eaters in the restaurant).

We were then introduced to Kenzo Mori (celebrated Japanese actor, Takehiro Hira), a quiet, stern-faced detective living with his family in a Tokyo apartment. His quiet demeanour, and the way he glided around both the chaos of family life (he lived with his wife and kids, including a sweet but delinquent teenage daughter, and his elderly bickering parents), made him instantly magnetic and he had real charisma. For an actor that wasn’t required to say much, you could tell he has skill.

His life was thrown into turmoil when he was paid a visit by a Mr Fukahara, the neighbourhood’s friendly Yakuza boss, who told him that the man who was killed in London was one of his men. Furthermore, he was killed by a special kind sword only used by Kenzo’s brother Yuto, who had been presumed dead.

Fukahara also admitted that it was ahe who ordered the Tokyo restaurant shooting. A revenge killing.

Yuto Mori was the black sheep of the family. We saw in flashback a weak young man, mixed up in all sorts but denying it all. So much so, in one scene we saw Kenzo help clean up a shooting for him so he could save his brother’s reputation and keep him out of jail.

Fukuhara, and Kenzo’s chief of police, urged him to go to London, find Yuto and bring him home – Fukahara wanted him so he could administer his own brand of justice, but the police chief wanted him for the traditional kind of justice.

What was apparent was that a gang war had been ignited, which meant extra pressure on Kenzo to find his brother quickly.

So off he went to London, and with that geographical switch came a change in tone (which is natural when you consider the two different cultures).

Kenzo had been arranged a cover story: to live and attend crime classes (hosted by disenfranchised policewoman Sarah Weitzman (Kelly Macdonald)), while carrying out his search during downtime.

In a London pub, he met a gay sex worker called Rodney Leonard Yamaguchi, who he agreed to help if he helped him. Rodney was abrasive, charismatic and slightly unhinged, with failed relationships, drug use and abuse addling his brain.

And so an unlikely friendship was born – two mismatched men, adrift in a swirling metropolis.

Soon, half thanks to Rodney, Kenzo had found a club owned by Connor Abbott. There he heard a story about his brother. The way this story was told was remarkable – we switched to an animated segment, something which wouldn’t have felt out of place if it appeared in a Japanese anime.

It was fresh and vibrant, and an exciting way to present a flashback. In fact, the window dressing of this show – the flashbacks, the titles – were just great: a rampage of Japanese drums accompanied them and it had a slick style all of its own.

What was clear was that Yuto was now working for Abbott and that he had become some semi-mythical creature – a sword-wielding assassin who did not hesitate to kill all in his path.

This felt very different from the slightly vulnerable, feckless youth back in Tokyo. Perhaps a bit too different.

Yuto was now Abbot’s personal property, and Kenzo was warned to stay away.

He refused and the final scene saw an assassin’s rifle trained on Kenzo’s forehead.

So a lot to take in from this first episode, and some of it was amazing… but then some of it wasn’t. Some of the characterisation felt one-dimensional and cliched – especially when it came to Rodney and some of Sarah’s police colleagues – and tonally it felt a bit all over the shop. Even though Sarah had experienced sexual abuse by a fellow policeman, her dating life (including a date and sexual encounter with a hapless bearded man) was played for almost comic effect. As was Rodney’s broken life.

But I couldn’t take my eyes off Kenzo, and I love that he’s your old-fashioned noir detective in a foreign land searching for his brother.

I just hope it meshes better as the series evolves.

Paul Hirons