Review of Giri/Haji

Giri/Haji (2019)
7/10
Good, but not great, drama
9 May 2020
The nephew of a powerful Yakuza boss is murdered in London. The Tokyo Police suspect that the perpetrator is a former member of a rival Yakuza clan. After a counter-hit on his former clan and fearing an escalating gang war, the suspect's brother, a police detective, is sent to London to track him down and bring him back to Japan.

Good drama series but promised to be brilliant. Started very well: the first four episodes were fantastic, full of action, an interesting plot, good back stories and interesting characters. However, the longer it went on the more implausible and contrived some of the plot development became. Some developments are quite farcical.

Furthermore, writer-creator Joe Barton tries to cram in far too many sub-plots into the series. I was only really interested in the crime-drama aspect but Barton has all sorts of other angles wound around this, stories that really don't add anything. I didn't mind when they were just there to provide some colour to proceedings but instead of staying as minor filler they become major plot streams (in terms of time consumed, rather than quality or interest/entertainment factor). Episodes 5-8 become very unfocused because of this, resulting in my interest and engagement waning.

It all comes together more-or-less okay in the end but the contrast with how it started is still quite stark.

A tighter plot, captured in about 4 or 5 episodes instead of 8, and this would have been excellent.
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