‘Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo’ Review: Takashi Miike Can’t Elevate an Uneven Entry Into an Unlikely Franchise

‘Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo’ Review: Takashi Miike’s Loose Remake is a Complete Nonstarter

The second re-imagining of “Bad Lieutenant” — Abel Ferrara’s 1992 neo-noir starring Harvey Keitel — Takashi Miike’s baffling “Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo” borrows the broad strokes of the original, but tells its own Yakuza-centric story that never fully gets going. Its stop-start approach sees numerous characters and subplots introduced before existing ones can be resolved, or […]

‘Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo’ Review: Takashi Miike Can’t Elevate an Uneven Entry Into an Unlikely Franchise

Japan is famous for its clean streets, and rightfully so: On the whole, Tokyo is far less dirty than you might expect from a mega-metropolis of its size. But it does have its squalid pockets, like the infamous square in the heart of Shinjuku’s Kabukicho vice district that’s home to the “Tōyoko kids” in Matoko Nagahisa’s “Burn.” Lieutenant Yabuki (Shun Oguri), the compromised antihero of Takashi Miike’s “Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo,” is a denizen of th…

Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo (TIFF) Review: Lily James Is Woefully Miscast in Takashi Miike’s Dull Sequel

Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo is a surprisingly dull crime thriller, with Shun Oguri underserved and Lily James badly miscast as a hard-boiled FBI agent.

Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo Review - Neon-Soaked Crime Thriller Fails To Live Up To Its Potential

Though it had so much promise, Takaski Miike's continuation of the Bad Lieutenant franchise becomes far too convoluted for its own good.

Toronto 2026 Review: BAD LIEUTENANT: TOKYO, Takashi Miike's Fairy Tale of Redemption

Is the Bad Lieutenant ‘franchise’ an excuse for wild auteur filmmakers to craft slyly black comedies full of sex and violence, and ideation-detritus that never made it into their other pictures? Is the Bad Lieutenant franchise even a franchise, or a vaguely connected idea of directorial maximalism?   After the cult success of Abel Ferrara’s disturbingly violent, sexual, and catholic soaked New York City character study (essayed by a fearless, of…