Miike's 'Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo' Branded 'Complete Nonstarter' — SkimNews
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- Takashi Miike's "Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo" reimagines Abel Ferrara's 1992 neo-noir with a Yakuza-centric story written by Daisuke Tengan, running 108 minutes.
- Shun Oguri stars as Yabuki, a divorced, drug-addled detective who snorts cocaine in front of his children's friends and runs gambling debts while investigating Yakuza-linked killings.
- Lily James co-stars as FBI agent Gwen Birgssen, delivering what the reviewer calls "an incomprehensible southern drawl" while searching for the missing daughter of an American politician.
- The review notes that first-act setups stretch through most of the runtime, with subplots — including a released gang member turning victims into meatballs — that "never fully cohere."
- Unlike Ferrara's 1992 original and Werner Herzog's 2009 "Port of Call New Orleans" sequel, which "shoved their violent lawmen towards spiritual agony," Miike's version reportedly offers no comparable depth for its detective.
- The film's only major setpiece "unfolds practically at random, completely disconnected from the plot," according to the Variety review.
- The review brands the film a "complete nonstarter" whose first intriguing turn arrives only 15 minutes before the credits.
Why it matters: The "Bad Lieutenant" franchise now has three distinct reimaginings, and a scathing verdict on Miike's entry — described as lacking the spiritual weight that made Ferrara's original and Herzog's 2009 New Orleans version resonate — suggests the concept's core appeal is harder than it looks to transplant. For Miike, a director with a sizable cult following for boundary-pushing genre work, the Variety pan marks a notably flat return to a high-profile English-language project.
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