Amazon Prime has released a first teaser trailer for its upcoming Like a Dragon: Yakuza adaptation. It’s a short teaser, but definitely feels more gritty and serious than the games’ sometimes goofy, always surreal brand of melodrama.
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.
In the go-go pandemic years it felt like we were getting an announcement for a videogame TV adaptation every week—remember the purported Amazon Disco Elysium show? That fever pitch has subsided, but we’re still seeing some of those projects bear fruit, like with Fallout and Like a Dragon. A quick thought for our fallen comrades, though: The Halo show got canceled right as Chief and the gang finally reached a dang Halo, and a full season after Master Chief had sex.