TV to Watch This Week: Michael Mann Hits Tokyo and Ken Burns Is All About the Benjamin

The BBC has acquired HBO Max’s Ansel Elgort-starring Tokyo Vice from Endeavor Content.

© (photo credit: Daniel J. White/PBS) Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns filming interviews for "The Roosevelts" in 2014. For his next historical deep dive, famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is exploring America’s relationship to the Holocaust.

Michael Mann (“Collateral,” “Ali”) fans can rejoice that he’s finally back with the HBO Max crime series “Toyko Vice.” In the series, which Mann produces and directs the excellent pilot of (read our review here), we get to see the legendary filmmaker wade into the waters of cops and crooks yet again. Set in Japan, the series focuses on an American crime reporter (Ansel Elgort) who attempts to embed himself in both the worlds of Japanese police and the criminal syndicate known as the Yakuza.

Ansel Elgort traveled to Japan this week for events to celebrate his new HBO Max series Tokyo Vice!

Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers knew why he wanted to be part of a TV series adaptation of Jake Adelstein’s time as a crime beat reporter in Japan.

Eiza Gonzalez walks the red carpet in a chic look for the premiere of her new movie, Ambulance, on Tuesday night (April 5) in Miami, Fla.

Michael Mann’s first directorial effort since 2015’s “Blackhat” comes to HBO Max this Thursday, April 7th, with the highly anticipated debut of “Tokyo Vice,” the loose adaptation of the memoir of the same name by Jake Adelstein. At first, the series seems like a perfect fit for the director of “Miami Vice,” “Collateral,” and “Public Enemies.” It’s another stylish venture that centers on morally questionable men and the women who find themselves both drawn to them and betrayed by them.

“TokyoVice“ is an HBO Max companion piece to the Michael Mann-produced TV series “Miami Vice,” which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. That show somehow hasn’t yet been revived beyond a single Mann-directed 2006 feature film, and now “Tokyo Vice” even boasts Mann as both its executive producer and its pilot-episode director.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticOver cigarettes in a Tokyo nightclub, a newbie crime reporter eager to make a mark is speaking to his source. Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), an American who’s become fluent in Japanese to work as a journalist far from home, uses the language to ask his source Jin Miyamoto (Hideaki Itō) whether the city of Tokyo has officially recorded murder cases at all. Miyamoto, a corrupt cop, is briefly caught up in all the flashes of distraction the nightclub has to offer — bright lights, music, liquor on order and young women ambiently available — before explaining the situation to this outsider.

Oscar Isaac, follows the first hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to struggle with Dissociative Identity Disorder. The show’s protagonist has four individual identities, though the series will start out focusing on the lives of just two. Alongside Issac, Ethan Hawke, Gaspard Ulliel and May Calamawy also star in.

Kim Kardashian celebrated the launch of SKIMS pop up store in Miami. A variety of A-listers were in attendance, all gathered to celebrate the expansion of SKIMS, which is now launching their own bathing suits.