Moksha World

The shutdown on television production due to COVID finally caught up to me this month. I have found it very, very difficult to find interesting series to watch. There is plenty of content across various platforms, but very little of it appeals to me. Although disappointing, it does force me to check out some series I would normally pass over. I have fond memories of watching samurai films as a kid, so I decided to give this drama about cops and yakuza a chance.

Kenzo Mori is a Tokyo cop with aging parents and a troubled teenage daughter. He and his family believe that his brother, Yuto, is dead after a disagreement with his yakuza boss. After the nephew of a rival yakuza boss is killed in London, Kenzo is shocked to learn that his brother might still be alive. He is assigned to go to London to bring his brother back to Tokyo and face justice. Initially it seems  that he should face criminal justice, but Kenzo’s boss is rather tight with the yakuza boss, who ultimately seems to be the one issuing the orders. 

Japanese series are often slow-paced in comparison to Western series. It can seem like nothing is happening, but then suddenly there is an all-out melodramatic ending in the last 10 minutes. If you’re not used to this pace, it can be hard to sit through. Personally I would have added more sword fights rather than gun fights, but this series presented a good compromise between British and Japanese timing and style. I do think they strayed from the main story too often by focusing on peripheral characters. Perhaps they intended to give some of these characters a more central storyline in Season Two. There were also some storylines left open after the final episode, also seemingly for a second season. Sadly, the series was canceled so there will be no closure for me on this story. 

I’ve never accepted that other cultures are impossible to understand. Granted, if you don’t live in that environment you won’t understand it in the same way. Maybe you will never understand yakuza culture. But I think a thoughtful viewing of this and other series, as well as reading and talking with people, could increase the depth of your understanding. If you never try, you’ll certainly never understand. I would argue that this presentation of saying you’ll never understand, is in itself discouraging many people from trying at all.

I would also like to take a moment to discuss Western kung fu versus Chinese kung fu series. I have to admit that I do not enjoy watching kung fu in English. The rhythm and intensity doesn’t suit it, in my mind anyway. I also think that Western series in this genre are really slow, which also changes the intensity level. I recently watched the Season One of Warrior on HBO Max. I’m not sure I can make it to Season Two unless I run out of other options. The dialogues and lack of action just didn’t work for me. The story is based on the writings of Bruce Lee but lacks intensity of his films. If you watch a few Jet Li or Donnie Yen movies, you’ll see what I mean about the lack of action. I did find the tensions between the Irish and Chinese immigrant communities in San Francisco during this era to be interesting. This would be an effective way to introduce the history of Asian immigrants in the United States. Something that does not get enough attention in the American education system. The series is mainly in English, so it is easier to follow. Chinese and English don’t follow similar sentence structures, so becoming comfortable reading English subtitles from Chinese does take some practice.

Despite the issues I mentioned, I am glad I watched these two series. I applaud the effort of both productions to explore these stories. If you can’t quite get into Japanese or Chinese series, either of these might make a good introduction. I encourage both producers and viewers of television to experiment more with the merging of Western and Asian cultures. Detectives, spies, gangsters, and people in general, wrestle with moral issues wherever they happen to be from. Even the yakuza have traditions and choices they wrestle with. Both series present a point of view on the circumstances that cause someone to make certain choices. Regardless of the culture they come from, each story gives us a new take on how and why a person makes certain choices.