The HBO Max show Tokyo Vice aired its second season in February of this year. The show starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe follows the story of an American journalist in Tokyo who uses the help of a veteran detective to capture Tokyo’s criminal elements controlled by the yakuza. The show received positive responses for its neo-noir treatment of the story.
Tokyo Vice became one of the few American shows to be filmed in the capital city of Japan as it is notorious for its stringent and bureaucratic measures to obtain permission to shoot. Series creator Alan Poul mentioned that the show’s second season was much easier to film on location as the people’s perception had changed since the airing of season one.
HBO’s Tokyo Vice Underwent Several Hurdles To Shoot In Japan
The first season of the HBO Max show Tokyo Vice was filmed amid the pandemic. Beginning in 2020, the crew reportedly started filming in Tokyo in March but had to shut down production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and then resumed in November of that year. After the show was renewed for a second season, the crew had to return to the capital city to film.
Japan has long been considered to be a troubled place to film for Hollywood productions. The President of the Fifth Season production house, which produced the show, mentioned that the country was extremely difficult for foreign crews as it was a different world for filmmaking. Showrunner Alan Poul said to The Hollywood Reporter,
“Everything in this country is local, and everything runs on precedent. With anywhere you want to shoot in Tokyo, the decision comes down to the local police station in that neighborhood. And if no one has shot there before, their instinct is always to say no.”
The filmmaker and producer also mentioned to KCRW that the locals were suspicious of how the American filmmakers would depict their country. However, when the crew returned for the second season of the show, Poul mentioned that things were much easier to film in real locations as they had seen the first season of Tokyo Vice. He said,
“Season one had been a hit and they had seen that we had basically gotten it right. They could trust us to present a fair image to different parts of the world. So, we went from being pariahs to VIPs, and that just opened so many doors for what we were able to shoot on location.”
Alan Poul mentioned that the crew was able to maintain better relationships with the localities and that he was even named the Ambassador for Tourism by the Governor of Tokyo. He also mentioned how if that had not been there, they would not able to film many of the complicated sequences in real locations in the show.
Japan’s History Of Being Difficult For Foreign Productions
Japan has been notorious for not being easy for foreign productions to shoot. While local industries have a better chance at filming at studios, real locations have reportedly been a bureaucratic hassle for foreign productions. One of the most infamous incidents was the shoot of Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, of which even Alan Poul was reportedly a part.
Paramount Productions’ Black Rain was reportedly set to film completely in Japan but had to stop midway as the country was not equipped to deal with the workings of the Hollywood industry. Filmmaker Ridley Scott had to stop shooting and leave the country midway and reportedly finish the film in California due to the problems they encountered (via AFI Catalog).
Alan Poul told The Hollywood Reporter about the type of problems they faced while shooting Black Rain,
“Black Rain was a big Paramount production, with dozens of American crew coming to Japan. And as a result, it was something that I think Japan was not yet prepared to handle in terms of the Western style of filmmaking — so it was constant tumult.”
According to Variety, the police department was not very cooperative with foreign productions and did not issue shoot permits easily. An anonymous filmmaker reportedly mentioned that it took at least 3-4 days to secure a permit for locations, which would be difficult for productions that plan for scenes only a day in advance.
Films like Bullet Train, which was set in Japan, also could not be filmed in the country and were shot on sound stages in LA. According to Architectural Digest, the Brad Pitt starrer emulated the Shinkansen a.k.a Japanese bullet train on sound stages and used the virtual production volume engines to film the backgrounds.
