Cover First look at HBO’s ‘Tokyo Vice’ (Photo: HBO)

The upcoming HBO original crime series boasts a star-studded cast that includes Golden Globe nominee Ansel Elgort and Academy Award nominees Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi

Tokyo Vice, the highly-anticipated HBO original crime drama series by award-winning playwright and screenwriter J.T. Rogers, finally releases its first trailer.

The eight-episode drama will premiere on April 7 with three episodes. After that, two episodes will debut every subsequent Thursday, leading up to the finale on April 28.

Tokyo Vice is loosely based on real life American investigative journalist Jake Adelstein’s first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat. Filmed on location in Tokyo, the crime drama captures Adelstein’s daily descent into the criminal underworld of the city in the late 1990s.

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In the trailer, Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort) arrives in Tokyo and wishes to become a crime reporter. It’s not as easy as it seems for a foreigner. His colleagues yell “gaijin!” (foreigner) at him but Adelstein is determined. “Giving up and going home is not an option,” he says.

Wanting to “feel the real Tokyo, what’s beneath the surface,” he recruits a cop from the organised crime division, Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe) to help. Adelstein is able to take a peek into the underbelly of Tokyo, specifically the work of the yakuza. The trailer ends with Katagiri telling Adelstein, “Don’t write about this”.

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The series boasts a star-studded cast led by Golden Globe nominee Ansel Elgort in the titular role. Other cast members include Academy Award nominees Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi as well as Rachel Keller, Ella Rumpf, Hideaki Ito, Show Kasamatsu and Tomohisa Yamashita.

Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers created and wrote the series and serves as executive producer. Meanwhile, four-time Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner Michael Mann will direct the pilot and is an executive producer alongside Angel Elgort and Jake Adelstein. Destin Daniel Cretton and Ken Watanabe also serve as executive producers.

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‘Tokyo Vice’ premieres on April 7, exclusively on HBO Go.

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