By Haoran Xia
Published on: DeepFocus
April 30, 2022
In 2003, Sofia Coppola turned Tokyo into an island. Loneliness and desire reacted chemically, leading us to drift through neon-lit nights alongside the washed-up star Bob and the young, uncertain Charlotte, lost together in the glow of the city. Almost without noticing, Tokyo became burdened by a series of Hollywood-imposed labels: its dazzling surface world, the perfect playground for the sprouting of love and the fermentation of desire; its shadowy underground, breeding mystery after mystery, cold and unspoken dramas. Karaoke bars, izakayas, underground parking garages, dimly lit arcades, even the intersecting wide and narrow alleyways of the city—spaces seemingly insignificant to outsiders—each possess their own meanings and stories within Tokyo’s vast urban labyrinth. Rewind to the end of the twentieth century: I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys loops endlessly, Tokyo stands at the height of its development, its anime industry and long-simmering fashion culture finally erupting, inspiring global youth with near-religious devotion. Young people from the West flock to Tokyo, placing themselves in the congestion of Shinjuku streets, sliced apart by beams of neon light, experiencing the Eastern beauty they had long fantasized about. Jake Adelstein—hereafter Jake—was one of them.
Jake came from Missouri. At nineteen, in 1988, he traveled alone to Japan to study Japanese language and literature. In 1993, he successfully entered one of Japan’s largest newspapers, Yomiuri Shimbun, becoming the first foreign reporter in Japanese journalistic history. Once inside the newsroom, crime reporting and investigations into the underworld became his core focus. He moved fluently between the black and white worlds, each step grounded in information and intelligence; inevitably, the colors of his own life were gradually reduced to black and white. Nearly twenty years later, in 2009, he published a semi-autobiographical work based on his experiences in Japan—Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan—a transparent chronicle of how Tokyo’s underground world at its peak slid, step by step, into the abyss.
Adapted from this book, the series Tokyo Vice premiered on HBO Max this April, with its first season concluding this week. Directed and produced by Michael Mann, and starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe, the series transforms the crimes once confined to ink and paper into full-body tattoos, endless cigarettes, and bullets wrapped in hatred. Mann—Hollywood’s veteran master of crime cinema—not only sets the visual and narrative tone by directing the pilot but imprints the entire series with his signature aesthetic: hypnotic neon lights, damp and shadowed Tokyo alleyways, stark contrasts between light and darkness, and clean, expansive framing. These layered visual elements precisely sketch the characters, societies, and stories suspended between two worlds. The dual-protagonist structure echoes Mann’s long-standing narrative style; in films like The Insider, Heat, and Miami Vice, he consistently unfolds stories through parallel perspectives—one black, one white—intersecting to form a rigorous and multidimensional structure.
Jake is a fairly typical Midwestern American boy: tall, straightforward, blunt, with a trace of reckless plains-born confidence. Before entering the newsroom, he immersed himself obsessively in Japanese and everything related to Japan, fantasizing about one day reporting the truth of Tokyo. Once inside, however, the suffocating hierarchy and cultural clashes force him to reflect: is this hostile environment worth sacrificing everything for? Carrying his recklessness, he goes alone to the police, seeking Detective Katagiri and Officer Miyamoto for guidance or clues. During one confrontation, Katagiri asks him bluntly, “Why do you want so badly to stay in Japan as a foreign reporter?” Jake answers, “Because the Japan we’re living in now isn’t the real Japan. I want to know what lies beneath the surface. I want the truth.” Truth—naive, almost laughable—becomes the catalyst for Jake and Katagiri’s collaboration and the driving force of the series itself.
As the dual protagonists storm Tokyo’s streets time and again, breaking into cramped apartments and piecing together fragments of cases, the “Japan beneath the surface” Jake seeks gradually reveals itself. The city’s rot and darkness emerge beneath its radiant halo, much like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho: a polished Manhattan elite by day, a bloodthirsty killer by night. Tokyo’s crimes are as countless as its excesses—from anonymous men self-immolating on midnight streets to foreign hostesses vanishing without a trace—each incident linking together into a massive urban hunting net that silently observes every potential victim, waiting to capture, anesthetize, and destroy. Just like its neon lights, Tokyo’s crimes slice mercilessly through everyone.
At the turn of the millennium, Tokyo stood at its peak—briefly. What followed was rapid descent. Jake’s time in the city coincided seamlessly with both the explosion and extinction of this global firework. In the context of the twentieth century, Tokyo caught the last train of the era, climbing the Tower of Babel as the millennium arrived. Its brilliance fueled the swelling of capital, and that swelling became the perfect catalyst for people losing themselves, sinking into consumerist vortices. To the yakuza, these fractured, decaying souls were ideal prey. At the same time, Japan’s organized crime syndicates reached their own zenith—expanding their ranks, seizing greater autonomy across social sectors, disrupting police power structures, and buying out newspaper headlines to suppress absolute freedom of speech. Two societies—above and below—were kneaded together like clay, and the “truth” Jake spoke of became precious precisely because it stood in opposition to Tokyo’s crimes.
One early morning, Jake flips through the day’s paper, only to find that the missing-girl story his editor Emi was responsible for has been relegated to the second-to-last page. Confused and furious, he rushes to her apartment. Standing together in the corridor, facing a sleeping Tokyo, Jake sighs, “I’m starting to question the meaning of all this.” Emi responds firmly: “The meaning is that someone has to tell the truth. One day, these truths will become undeniable facts—and they will be published. That’s certain.”
Jake, Emi, and their colleagues represent divergent attitudes toward truth. The local Japanese reporters often choose humanity over truth, or simply view journalism as a means of livelihood rather than a force for social change. Jake and Emi, however, believe in the power of the press and the responsibility that comes with it. No matter how deep or dangerous the mire behind the truth, they see revealing it as an obligation—one made heavier within a society molded by compromise. From a journalistic perspective, Tokyo Vice is both an inquiry into the meaning of truth and a hymn to the profession itself. In the era of print media, every word on the page carried authority; headlines could shake society, and reporters fought over every line of text. Today, algorithm-driven trending lists drown out journalism’s social weight, reducing news to endlessly replicated, disposable data. Against this backdrop, Jake and Emi’s perseverance feels almost extinct.
Emi’s character also offers a macro portrait of women navigating patriarchy in Japanese society. Whether confronting superiors or negotiating with police, she insists on professionalism and dignity, refusing to let victims be reduced to “some girl,” reminding others that they had names and identities. While sexual bargaining remains one path to agency, Emi chooses fairness and competence. Alongside her, characters like Samantha, Polina, and even Tozawa’s mistress form a striking female ensemble—women who confront male-dominated jungles and patriarchal rules, radiating strength amid the grime of Tokyo’s underworld.
The yakuza themselves are rendered with equal nuance: slicked-back hair, half-body tattoos, silver chains, tailored suits—symbols of filthy wealth and exaggerated masculinity. Most intriguing among them is Sato, a man with an angel’s heart. Born into poverty and rejected by his family, he joins the yakuza out of necessity. Yet his gentleness betrays him: he recoils from killing, avoids violence, softens around children and the elderly. Cold on the surface, burning within, Sato recalls Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad—an anti-hero shaped by contradictions, destined to dissolve alongside the society that forged him.
Though many truth-seekers and criminals are Japanese, the story’s narrator remains an American boy. Do we still need an American to tell an Asian story? Jake’s recklessness may grant access, but does it also filter truth through a Western lens, transforming firsthand experience into secondhand interpretation? Do we still need an American journalist to expose Tokyo’s—or the Asia’s—darkness? The answer, perhaps uncomfortably, is already clear.
作者：夏浩然
发表于：深焦DeepFocus
二零二二 四月三十日
2003 年，索菲亚·科波拉将东京变为一座孤岛，孤独与情愫相互化学作用，让我们与过气的明星鲍勃和年少懵懂的夏洛特一起，迷失在东京的霓虹灯里。不知不觉，东京似乎被好莱坞附属上多个标签，她绚丽迷人的地表世界， 是爱情生发和性欲发酵最好的游乐场；她阴暗神秘的地下世界，催生了接二连三的谜团和不为人知的阴冷戏剧。卡拉 OK 店，居酒屋，地下停车库，昏暗的电玩厅，甚至是东京里相互交叉的宽窄小巷，这些在世人看来毫不起眼的小地点，却在东京这座硕大的都市迷宫中，拥有着属于他们自己的意义和故事。时间退回到 20世纪末期，后街男孩的‘I Want It That Way’被无限循环，当时的东京正值发展巅峰，她引以为傲的动漫产业和沉淀终得爆发的时尚行业，让全球年轻人为之顶礼膜拜。西方国家不少年轻人纷纷前往东京， 将自己置放在拥挤的新宿街头，被一束束霓虹灯任意切割，感受他们向往已久的东方美。而杰克·阿德尔斯坦（以下简称为杰克）则是这帮西方年轻人中的其中之一。
杰克来自美国密苏里州， 19 岁那年（1988 年），他一人只身前往日本求学，学习日语和日本文学。1993 年，他成功进入日本最大的新闻报社之一——《读卖新闻》，成为日本新闻史上第一位外国记者。进入报社后，犯罪故事和地下黑社会的报道成为了杰克的核心报道内容。他游刃有余地在黑白两道之间交涉，每一步踏在情报和信息之上，自然而然，他生活中的色彩也逐渐被黑白两色填满。多年后，在 2009 年，他基于自己在日本接近 20 年的工作经历，出版了一本半自传——《东京罪恶：一个美籍记者的日本警方采实记录》 ，透明记录了东京巅峰时期的地下世界，如何一步步跌入深渊。
根据这本半自传改编的剧集《东京罪恶》于 今年四月登陆 HBO MAX，第一季已于本周四完结。这部由迈克尔·曼执导，汇聚安塞尔·埃尔格特和渡边谦等实力演员的剧集， 将浮现于白纸黑字之间的东京罪恶，转化为覆满上半身的纹身，抽不尽的香烟，以及被仇恨包裹的子弹。而擅长拍摄犯罪片的老牌好莱坞导演迈克尔·曼，在剧集中，同时担任制片与导演，执导剧集首播集，为全剧定下基调。迷幻诱人的霓虹灯光，潮湿暗黑的东京小巷，光照对比强烈的户外景致，以及干净广阔的取景构图，这些摄影方面的精致元素一一叠加，更精细地勾勒出游走在两个世界里的人物，社会与故事。双男主的设定也映衬了迈克尔·曼一贯的叙述风格。在他过往的作品中，例如《惊爆内幕》 ，《盗火线》以及《迈阿密风云》 ，故事通常以两位主角的角度展开，一个讲黑，一个讲白，再相互交叉，使得影片或者剧集整体的叙述结构十分工整、立体。
杰克是一名比较典型的美国中部男孩。他高大，简单，直接，还带有一点美国中部平原的鲁莽。在进入报社以前，他废寝忘食地学习着日语和与日本有关的一切，幻想着有朝一日能够报道东京真相。而进入报社之后， 扑面而来的上下级差异和文化冲突引起他的反思，这糟糕恶劣的工作环境， 是否值得他留下付出一切？带着他的鲁莽， 他只身前往警察局找到片桐警探和宫本警官，希望可以得到一丝线索，或者引导。而在一次与片桐对峙中，警探惊叹问道“你为什么这么想留在日本当一名外国记者？”，杰克回答道：“因为目前我们所处的日本社会不是真正的日本，我想知道这表层下面的日本究竟是什么样的。我想得到真相。”真相，这个看似可笑且天真的名词，则促成了杰克和片桐的合作，也成为了剧集发展的原动力。
跟随双男主一次次冲上东京街头，打破一个又一个狭窄的东京房门，搜查桩桩事件的蛛丝马迹，杰克所渴望的“表层下的日本”似乎渐渐浮出水面，这座城市恶臭的，阴暗的一面纷纷暴露在璀璨的东京光环下，正如《美国精神病人》中的帕特里克·贝特曼，白天他是一名光彩照人的曼哈顿精英，而到了夜晚，他则转变为嗜血成瘾的杀人犯。东京的罪恶正如她的浮华，数不胜数，无论是匿名大叔在半夜街头自焚，还是舞厅的外国女服务员莫名失踪，这些发生在京东各个街角的罪恶和惨案，前后相互串联成一张硕大的城市猎网，静静观察着每一个潜在的受罪者，等时机成熟，捕获，麻醉，再毁灭，犹如每一个迷人的霓虹灯光，肆意切割着所有东京人。
回到当下，20 世纪末期的东京正值颠峰期，不过昙花一现，巅峰过后面临着极速陨落，杰克所在的这段时间，则刚好无缝衔接了东京这束世界烟花的绽放和消亡。就二十世纪而言，东京赶上了这一百年的末班车，在千禧年之际攀上巴比伦塔高处，而城市的绚烂务必刺激了资本的膨胀，资本膨胀则是东京人失去真我，沦陷进消费漩涡的最佳催化剂，那么最终，这一个个颓废散架的灵魂，在黑帮眼里，便是最好的猎物。同一时期的京东黑帮 —— 极道，也迎来了他们的鼎盛，他们团体内部人员数量暴增，夺取更多社会领域的自主权，搅乱警局内部力量的同时，买断各大新闻头条，遏止绝对自由言论。一时之间，东京的两个社会像两块橡皮泥一样，被逐渐揉捏在一起，而杰克口中所谓的真相，则变得可贵，成为了东京罪恶的反对面。
一夜凌晨，杰克拿着当天的晨间早报，迅速翻读着当天的新闻，因为当天的晨报头条中，本应当有他上司——英美报道的“女生失踪案件”新闻，却无奈被安置在倒数第二页。他无解，愤怒，急匆匆地跑到英美家中。他们一同站在房间外的楼道中，面朝入睡的东京，杰克叹息道：“我现在都开始怀疑做着一切的意义了”，而英美坚定地答道：“我们做的一切意义就在于，必须有人说出真相。 因为直到有一天，这些真相会被默认为是铁板钉钉的事实，那么他们终究会被发布出来。这是肯定的。”
报社的四位角色，杰克，英美和其他两位同事， 代表对于真相追求的不同声音。杰克的两位同事，当地日本人，在真相前更选择人性，或者在他们眼中，报社的功能单单为一份养家糊口的工作，并不能为他们的生活，或东京社会产生影响或产生改变。而杰克与英美则从同一角度出发，他们相信报社的力量，也相信自己这位职业所附属的权力，认为无论真相背后的泥潭多深多险和揭开真相的代价，将真相告知天下是他们应有的义务，而在那个揉捏的社会大体下，这种义务变得更加沉重，成为了一种无形的责任。而从记者角度出发， 《东京罪恶》一方面在探讨真相的意义，揭露东京社会的真相面，另一方面也是一首对该职业的赞歌。 在那个拥有白纸黑字的纸媒时代，报纸上所刊登的每个字都拥有至上权力，头条新闻更能在社会中激起万层浪，各大报刊的记者和编辑更是为了能在报纸上多刊登几个字，在纸上来回修改，直到每一个标准符号都拥有它存在的意义。而现如今，实时刷新的微博热搜霸占所有信息来源，流量的力量淹没了新闻本身附属的崇高价值和社会引导力，杰克和英美身上所凸显的毅力和对真相的渴求，在当今社会也如同海底捞针，千里难寻，因为一切新闻似乎成为了可随意复制、粘贴、转发的网络信息，他们存在的时间以秒作数，往往被读完开头后，便被淘汰，刷至顶端，再不见踪影。
反观角色构造， 英美这位女性角色，单方面又宏观地描绘了日本社会中女性在男权社会下的不可控地位以及日本女性，如何在当代逐渐找到主权。无论是在与上司的对峙还是与警方的沟通中，英美始终保持着绝对的专业和对职业的尊重，她不允许下属或者警署叫受害的女性“某个女孩”，而是提醒他们，这些受害者仍是拥有姓名和身份的女性。况且在日本做为一名女性，拥有主权的方法有很多，最简易直接的则是性的博弈，不过英美在两性的权益衡量中，选择了用绝对公平和专业去说服每一位男性。 女性角色中的英美只是一个范例，其他女性角色比如萨曼莎和波琳娜，包括黑帮另一帮派老大户泽的情妇都是敢于面对男性丛林，打破父权规则的勇敢女性，在面对数不尽的黑帮肮脏要求，日本男的下流行为，和社会地下的不公对待时，这一批女性群像，成为了剧集里的另一个闪光点，在幽暗冷酷的东京黑帮交易里，迸发属于女性独有的力量。
除开女性角色，黑帮角色的建构也颇有意思。他们油头的造型，半身的彩色纹身，银色链子和笔挺的西装，代表他们肮脏财富的同时，嘲讽着黑帮社会幼稚自大的男性形象。不过其中最值得玩味的角色，便是那位拥有天使心脏的佐藤。佐藤出身于贫困家庭，他因被父母唾弃，被迫加入黑帮。但在多次与上级共事时，他的上级和老板早已发现，他性格过于温柔，不适合黑帮。他杀人后感到不适，在每次争执中不愿施加暴力，在有小孩和老人的场景中，他会主动心软并做出礼让。他外表如冰，内心滚烫。正如《绝命毒师》中的杰西·平克曼，这类反主人公式英雄往往多面又单面，复杂又简单，他们多样的性格和内心独白也他们所处的环境相辅相成，不停地生长，融合，再消散，但落得的结局也终究跟着他们的社会一起消亡。
虽然这群真相的追寻者和黑帮守护者大部分纷纷来自日本，可我们的剧集核心人物，换而言之，我们的故事讲述者，仍是一名美国男孩。那么，在当下的东方故事讲述中，我们仍需要一名美国男孩来讲述东京的罪恶故事吗？或许杰克那中部的鲁莽，在一定程度上，为他获取情报提供了捷径，不过当全球观众需要了解日本社会的真实情况时，我们是否还需要从第三方角度切入，获得第二手资料？或许你会认为，深处在东京一线的杰克为第一手资料人，但作为美国人的他，在消化信息，处理情报的同时，已将所有东京信息自动化西式处理过，理所当然成为了第二手。到底，我们是否还需要一名美国的年轻记者来加以扶持暴露东京罪恶，甚至是东方罪恶？而答案也是显而易见的。