Tag: Tokyo Vice

SHOW OF THE WEEK: The Allegation (April 7, 9 p.m., Hollywood Suite)

That some of the world’s worst injustices come from so-called justice systems is surely not a shock to anyone who keeps abreast of current affairs, but the point is made in a particularly eloquent and entertaining way in this German drama.

It’s based on a real 1990s German child abuse case — and will have echoes for anyone who remembers the “satanic panic” cases in California in the 1980s and Saskatchewan in the 1990s — but you needn’t know the antecedents to enjoy this smart and gripping show.

It begins with a doctor in the small town of Ottern examining an unseen six-year-old girl and pronouncing “beyond reasonable medical doubt” that she’s been subjected to chronic sexual abuse. The nurse who takes the photos during the exam texts a friend about it, which sets off a chain-reaction social media frenzy of condemnation for the perpetrator.

Then suddenly we’re in Berlin, in the company of a defence lawyer whose best days appear to be behind him, being woken in the middle of the night to represent a woman accused of killing her husband for the life insurance money.

Peter Kurth, whom you’ll remember if you watched another excellent German drama, “Babylon Berlin,” is masterful as lawyer Richard Schlesinger. He’s a wounded bear of a man whose somewhat slovenly appearance and curmudgeonly demeanour belie a sharp intelligence and keen understanding of human nature.

But mob enforcer Azra (German-Iranian actor Narges Rashidi) is even sharper. Though we first meet her when she’s beating Schlesinger up — a warning over a gambling debt he owes — they become allies and even friends of a sort. She helps him see a small detail that destroys the seemingly open-and-shut case against the accused husband killer and then asks him to defend a man in the child abuse case in Ottern on behalf of an unnamed client.

By the time we revisit it, the case has expanded to 16 children, 26 adults accused of running a child sex ring and public outrage at a fever pitch. Although there’s no corroborating physical evidence and all of the accused have denied the allegations, the statements of the children attesting to the abuse seem like an insurmountable obstacle for the various defence lawyers.

But when Schlesinger digs in, he finds that the investigation was taken away from the local police and handed over to a child psychiatrist with no criminal justice training, overseen by an inexperienced public prosecutor who shares her unshakeable belief that the children are telling the truth.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but it’s both fascinating and thrilling to watch Schlesinger work the case, tearing holes in what seem like rock solid facts. It’s also worth noting that no matter how convincing his arguments, public belief in the guilt of the accused remains resolute.

Schlesinger tells the child psychiatrist, Ina Reuth (Katharina M. Schubert), that morality has to be separated from the law, which might seem counterintuitive but later appears indisputable in light of the harm done in Ottern.

The plot of this drama turns on very dark perceptions, but there’s also a lightness to it. Schlesinger’s interactions with various secondary characters are funny, whether it’s the exasperated pet store employee who sells him a goldfish, the front desk clerk at his Ottern hotel or the priest who lets him store his files in the monastery’s scriptorium. But the tonal shifts are never jarring.

The best shows, like truth, aren’t black and white, and “The Allegation” is one of these.

Short Takes

Tokyo Vice (April 7, 11 p.m., Crave)

The first couple of episodes of this much anticipated series seem less about vice than a sort of “an American in Tokyo” tale as U.S. expat Jake (Ansel Elgort) fulfills his dream of becoming the first foreigner to work for a prestigious Japanese newspaper in 1999. All floppy-haired, gung-ho energy, Jake tries to navigate the newsroom’s restrictive rules, where he is dismissively referred to as “gaijin” (foreigner in Japanese), and to ingratiate himself with the vice cops who could help him do more than rewrite police press releases. I suppose it makes sense since the show is based on the memoir of the real Jake Adelstein, about his years on the Tokyo crime beat for the Yomiuri Shinbun daily, but the show didn’t start to jell for me until the third episode. That’s when Jake’s story becomes more intertwined with other characters’, including veteran detective Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe), American hostess bar employee Samantha (Rachel Keller) and junior Yakuza member Sato (Sho Kasamatsu). Watanabe’s fellow Oscar nominee, Rinko Kikuchi, also co-stars as Jake’s supervisor Eimi. We know from the opening minutes of the series that it’s all leading to a showdown two years later between Jake, Katagiri and the organized crime group over a story they don’t want Jake to write. Non-spoiler alert: Jake lived to tell the tale. Much of the dialogue is in Japanese with subtitles, which shouldn’t be an issue for anyone, although it’s challenging initially to figure out the hierarchy among the Yakuza. And the series benefits from the authenticity of being shot on location in Tokyo. I have to be honest though; maybe it’s just Ansel Elgort overload, having recently watched him in “West Side Story,” but Jake was the least appealing character for me.

Crave also has Season 3 of “A Black Lady Sketch Show” (April 8, 11 p.m., HBO) and the docuseries “The Invisible Pilot” (April 4, 9 p.m., HBO), which plays a bit of a trick on viewers: you think you’re watching the story of a man, Gary Betzner, who inexplicably committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in 1977, and it becomes a completely different story halfway through the first episode.

Dirty Lines (April 8, Netflix)

There’s a bumper crop of new shows on Netflix this week but — out of those I had access to — I chose to focus on this Dutch dramedy based on the true story of Europe’s first erotic phone line company. It may be hard to believe in the age of on-demand internet porn, but there was a time when people would pay to listen to recordings of sexy stories. “Dirty Lines” is not actually that dirty; it’s more about how its characters navigate their own relationships with sex and other people, including the two brothers behind Teledutch: Frank (Minne Koole), a husband and father-to-be who’s ambivalent about monogamy, and Ramon (Chris Peters), also a married father who’s secretly gay. Our way into the story is Marly (Joy Delima), a young, sexually inexperienced student whose life changes after she’s caught on camera by a news crew while doing a one-off recording for Teledutch. It turns out she’s horrible at play-acting sex but very good at turning sexual fantasies into phone scripts, which gives her a much needed job and boost in confidence. The drama is set in late 1980s Amsterdam against the backdrop of cultural developments like the rise of house music and political ones like the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s not a must-see, more of a nostalgic, gently humorous diversion.

On a much more serious note, Netflix also has the docuseries “Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story” (April 6), which was not available to screen, about the English TV star who raised millions for charity but was found after his death in 2011 to have sexually abused as many as 500 children and adults. April 6 also brings reality series “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move on,” in which commitment-phobes have to decide whether to wed their current partners while playing footsie with other people’s significant others, and “Green Mothers’ Club,” a South Korean drama about the friendships and rivalries between five grade school moms. There are two more docs on April 7, “Return to Space,” about NASA astronauts hitching a ride to the International Space Station with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and series “Senzo: Murder of a Soccer Star,” about the slaying of South Africa’s Senzo Meyiwa. Dramas “Queen of the South” (April 7) and “Elite” (April 8) return with fifth seasons. And April 9 brings two more South Korean shows, “My Liberation Notes” and “Our Blues.”

Odds and Ends

If you enjoyed the first season of the latest adaptation of “The Hardy Boys” novels — and I found it entertaining — you’ll be pleased to know the second season is debuting April 4 at 8 p.m. on YTV and StackTV. Brothers Frank (Rohan Campbell) and Joe Hardy (Alexander Elliot) are back solving mysteries with friends Callie (Keana Lyn), Chet (Adam Swain), Phil (Cristian Perri) and Biff (Riley O’Donnell). And there’s a new girl in town, Belinda (Krista Nazaire).

Irish mysteries are usually right up my alley so I regret I didn’t have time to screen Acorn’s latest original series, “Harry Wild,” debuting April 4. “Harry” is Harriet, played by veteran English actor Jane Seymour. The retired English professor starts interfering in a murder case being investigated by her police detective son (Kevin Ryan) and enlists the teen who mugged her (Rohan Nedd) as her sidekick.

Apple TV Plus has “Pinecone & Pony” (April 8), a kids’ show based on a book by Canadian author Kate Beaton about a warrior-in-training and her equine best friend.

Prime Video’s new offering this week is the movie “All the Old Knives” (April 8), starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton as CIA agents and former lovers who have to root out a mole.

If you’re a fan of American history and/or Ken Burns films, know that his two-part documentary “Benjamin Franklin” debuts on PBS April 4 and 5 at 8 p.m., with Mandy Patinkin providing the voice of Franklin.

NOTE: The listings here are in Eastern Standard Time and I’ve verified the times where possible, but it’s always best to check listings for your own area. The selection of programs reviewed reflects what I’m given access to by networks and streamers, whether reviews are embargoed, how many shows I have time to watch and my own personal taste. The Odds and Ends section includes shows that I have not watched.