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Amazon Yakuza/Like a Dragon - First trailer

Gp1

Member


The trailer shows brief scenes from the show intercut with close-ups of Kiryu getting his signature dragon back tattoo applied. The show takes place in 1995 and 2005, seemingly a retelling of Yakuza 1, but if Kiryu's still getting his back tattoo for the first time, that indicates to me that they might have tweaked the story to give us a younger Kiryu, possibly incorporating elements of Yakuza 0.

In this timeline, Kiryu seems to be some kind of underground prizefighter, at least on the side, which might help explain his proficiency with martial arts⁠—in the games, the guy fights like Donnie Yen but apparently never trains or goes to the gym. Though I gotta say, I always appreciated how even the most craggy-faced old gangsters in the Yakuza games are inexplicably, jacked, acrobatic fighters. The shots of Kamurocho nightlife in the trailer, meanwhile, have this vibe of brittle, nervous decadence that I can really get behind.

It all seems a bit too serious compared to the games, "gritty" was the word used to describe it in the show's promo material, but this still looks like some stylish Tokyo noir, and if Like a Dragon: Yakuza brings some quality fight choreography and stunts, who cares how faithful it is to the games? We'll know for sure whether or not Like a Dragon: Yakuza is a winner when it releases on October 24.

It looks like they will go with a Yakuza 0, 1 and Yakuza Black Panther for the series. I like what I'm seeing here, that Japanese mocking tone of the games wouldn't be good in a live action.
 
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Hrk69

Gold Member
i hope they dun have turn based battle :p
funny just for laughs GIF
 

HAYA8U5A

Member
Didn't Miike Takashi make a movie like this in the 90s?

If you are talking specifically based on the video game series it was 2007.



If you are talking Yakuza in general then yeah he had some in the 90's and I would guess you are thinking something like Dead or Alive but he has made a lot of Yakuza movies. Yakuza movies are very common in general. Especially in the 60's and 70's when they were pumping out a ton of them which is why I am surprised the video game series never had a spin-off in that time frame as a homage to those films.

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This teaser didn't show much so impossible to get a feel for it until a full trailer. Not overly optimistic but that could just be the usual expecting the worst from a video game adaptation even if Amazon are coming off one of the few good ones.
 

navii

My fantasy is that my girlfriend was actually a young high school girl.
Trailer was lame. I hope the show itself is indeed good.
 

StueyDuck

Member
this is one of those games that only works as a video game.

any of the yakuza games in general, if you strip all the light-hearted silly side elements out of them they lose what makes them special. it's gonna be a tough sell
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Gritty is precisely the wrong tone to be using for a Yakuza adaptation. Let's hope it's a lot more playful and weird than this trailer seems to indicate. Suck all of the fun stuff out of the games and they wouldn't be half as good as they are.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Never played any of these games so I'm in the enviable (?) position of bring able to watch this fresh and unbiased. Seems aight to me.
 
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deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Never played any of these games so I'm in the enviable (?) position of bring able to watch this fresh and unbiased. Seems aight to me.
Let's see your review of the show in comparison with someone who plays since ever, like myself

I hope all the episodes get released in the same day
 
Awful trailer, the show looks ugly and cheap, and Kiryu was a complete miscast. Made by a bunch of people that never played the games for an audience that never asked for this.

The games are already episodic like a TV series, and the character models are some of the most detailed in gaming. You can see their fucking pores most of the time. This is the last series that needed a live action adaptation.
 

Gp1

Member
It fells like a mix between yakuza 0 and Black Panther.
I never liked the silly parts in Yakuza and I don't care about the details in the game's plot so it seems fine to me.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Yep, name recognition cash grab with zero love on display. Skinny pretty boy Kiryu too. Distasteful.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I admit. I've never played the games, so to me the trailer doesn't look bad. Might give it a watch.
 

Dazraell

Member
I've watched the first episode and oh boy, it's a huge mess. They changed a lot of stuff and unfortunately for the worse
 

March Climber

Gold Member
I dont think western journalistic farts are the target audience for such a show.
This could be another Cowboy Bebop situation instead.

I thought the live action CB was a fun show with style that, if it were named literally anything else, could have had better reviews and impressions than what it ended up with. That's how I'm going to treat this Yakuza show when I watch it.

These studios just play with fire every time they decide to name these projects after cult classics.
 
The Yakuza movie that came out a while ago is actually kind of stupidly fun if you just consider it some weird spinoff in a vacuum.

This however I have very little hope for, unfortunately... I'll give a watch this weekend though and see how bad it gets.
 
I've watched the first episode and oh boy, it's a huge mess. They changed a lot of stuff and unfortunately for the worse
Is one of those changes Majima using more masculine honorifics for Kiryu? With the pasty twigboy they got, Majima calling him Kiryu-chan doesn't really work as a joke anymore.
 
Watched the first episode today

Is it bad? No. But is it Yakuza? Also no. The show is like somebody was given a rough outline of the plot of the first game and some incomplete character profiles and was told to fill the gaps as they liked. Sometimes it felt more like Kurohyou than Yakuza.

Luckily thanks to this disconnect I was able to turn off the part of my brain that was telling me that something I cherished was being desecrated before my eyes and I was able to watch most of the episode for what it was: a watchable crime drama that would probably have scored like 10 or 15 points more if it wasn't associated with LaD
 

March Climber

Gold Member
sigh that's what I was afraid of.
I've watched the first episode and oh boy, it's a huge mess. They changed a lot of stuff and unfortunately for the worse
I just watched the first 2 episodes. My advice is to take Jack Videogames Jack Videogames advice and turn off that part of your brain that heavily associates this with Yakuza/LAD.

It's not too late to do so since you're only on episode 1, and you'll have a much better time with it because it won't upset you with all of the changes.
 

Dazraell

Member
Is one of those changes Majima using more masculine honorifics for Kiryu? With the pasty twigboy they got, Majima calling him Kiryu-chan doesn't really work as a joke anymore.
I haven't seen Majima yet, he wasn't in the episode 1 and beginning of episode 2. And I'm not sure if I even want to watch remaining two episodes lol But yeah, that looked so weird on a trailer

sigh that's what I was afraid of.
Yeah, I'm not in a camp that says adaptations always should be direct 1:1 to source material, but I feel they should at least try to keep the spirit of it. Every change I saw so far feels significantly worse than how it was handled in the game. Kiryu's actor unfortunately also doesn't have the same presence and charisma like his character has in games. Shows version is very forgettable so far. Nishiki's change is also portrayed really funny, the 2005 version looks like just the same kid but in a suit lol

I just watched the first 2 episodes. My advice is to take Jack Videogames Jack Videogames advice and turn off that part of your brain that heavily associates this with Yakuza/LAD.

It's not too late to do so since you're only on episode 1, and you'll have a much better time with it because it won't upset you with all of the changes.
It's kinda like with Netflix's Witcher TV series. You recognize characters, places and some story beats, but story is so warped and changed that it kinda loses the meaning of the original. I agree, it's best to not approach it as an adaptation. But problem is that I don't think this stands on its own even with detaching from the IP as a lot of story beats so far were between meh to mid
 

Durien

Member
I am watching this right now (second episode) and I have played most of the games. So far I think the show is taking itself too seriously. Taking the Yakuza name to make a live action sets expectations. Why not call it it's own thing and change the names? From what I remember, this is pretty loosely based on the games, like the characters were there, it takes place in Japan, and the Tower storyline was in the game.
I would have taken the chance and called it something different. Take the money it cost them in licensing to do better advertising and more story line investment.
It also has also been quite some time since I played the games...
 

March Climber

Gold Member
It's kinda like with Netflix's Witcher TV series. You recognize characters, places and some story beats, but story is so warped and changed that it kinda loses the meaning of the original. I agree, it's best to not approach it as an adaptation. But problem is that I don't think this stands on its own even with detaching from the IP as a lot of story beats so far were between meh to mid
I guess for me the difference between this and Witcher is that this show is still in a 'real world' setting enough for me to consider it yet another gang/crime show.

It is very hard for someone to look at Witcher like it's something else because the setting is fantasy and it heavily depended on concepts from that fantasy series.
 
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