Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo Review: Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Reimagining Stumbles Under an Overstuffed Story
1. Basic Information About the Film
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo is directed by Takashi Miike and written by Daisuke Tengan. The film is the second reimagining of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 crime drama Bad Lieutenant, which starred Harvey Keitel in the lead role.
Werner Herzog previously reimagined the story in 2009 with Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Miike’s new film follows the broad framework of the original while shifting the story toward Japan and the Yakuza.
The film is in English and Japanese and has a runtime of 108 minutes. It was reviewed at the Toronto Film Festival’s Special Presentations section on September 15, 2026, and is premiering at the festival ahead of a release later in 2026.
The production is a U.S.-Japan collaboration involving Neon, Nippon TV, Inc., Pressman Film, Recorded Picture Company and OLM. Worldwide sales are handled by Neon International.
2. Main Cast and Characters
Shun Oguri plays Lieutenant Yabuki, a divorced and drug-addicted detective whose past is connected to the Yakuza. He also struggles with a gambling addiction, using cocaine and meth while losing money at baccarat.
Lily James plays FBI agent Gwen Birgssen, who arrives in Japan searching for Megan, the daughter of an American politician. Gwen is portrayed as frequently hungover during her investigation.
Gionna Daddio, credited under her WWE name Liv Morgan, plays Megan, a culinary student who has come to Tokyo to study sushi.
The cast also includes Shotaro Mamiya, Jun Kunimura and Hiroshi Tachi.
3. Yabuki’s Opening Story
The film opens with Yabuki dropping his children off at school. He takes cocaine in front of their friends before being called to a violent crime scene.
There, a small Yakuza member has been tied up during a sexual encounter, with his neck almost completely twisted around. Yabuki shows little reaction to the disturbing scene.
Because of his previous experience targeting the Yakuza, investigators expect him to provide expert insight. Instead, Yabuki shows little interest in moving the case forward. He gives information about the investigation to a bookie in an attempt to get help with his gambling debts before returning to the baccarat table.
Yabuki is then drawn into a second series of killings involving a gang member who has recently been released from prison and begins targeting former associates.
The murders are exceptionally violent, with some victims having their heads crushed or cut off. In one case, bodies are turned into minced meat, connecting the gruesome material to minced meat being fed to crows.
During the investigation, Yabuki reaches the suspected killer’s former orphanage and learns more about the man’s past. The film then begins moving through several additional detours.
4. Yakuza and Murder Investigation
The investigation initially appears to give Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo a clear criminal framework, but the story repeatedly moves away from its central cases.
Yabuki becomes involved in the killings connected to the former gang member, while information about both criminal cases often reaches him through phone calls from other people rather than through discoveries made during his own investigation.
The suspected killer’s history leads Yabuki to an orphanage, providing some information about the character’s background. However, the film continues branching into separate subplots.
Several of these storylines appear to connect, but they never completely form a coherent whole. A major action set-piece also arrives unexpectedly and, according to the review, has no clear connection to the larger plot.
The result is a crime story that keeps introducing new directions without giving its central investigation enough room to develop.
5. FBI Agent Gwen and Megan’s Story
Gwen Birgssen comes to Tokyo to find Megan, the daughter of an American politician. Megan has been caught using crack while in Japan, creating the possibility of embarrassment for her family and the U.S. government.
Megan originally came to Japan to study sushi as a culinary student.
Gwen eventually encounters Yabuki by chance and decides to use his help to locate Megan. The meeting initially suggests that the film’s American and Japanese storylines are finally going to converge.
Instead, the narrative continues moving in different directions. Megan’s storyline repeatedly takes a back seat while Yabuki becomes involved with other characters and situations.
Megan is played by Liv Morgan, whose professional wrestling background also informs the character’s physical presence, as noted by the Guardian.
6. Reviewers’ Comments on the Film’s Story and Structure
Variety describes Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo as an “overstuffed” story in which numerous characters and subplots are introduced rapidly, with new storylines beginning before earlier plotlines have been resolved.
The first-act setup stretches across much of the film’s 108-minute runtime, leaving the movie feeling like a plotless meander rather than a steadily developing investigation.
Despite its Tokyo nightlife setting, the film makes limited use of its time and place. Neon clubs and Tokyo locations appear throughout, but they do not create the distinctive atmosphere associated with some of Miike’s earlier work.
The characters’ pasts also remain largely opaque. Apart from glimpses of Yabuki’s former partner, the film does not establish a deeper connection beneath the different histories being discussed by its Japanese and American characters.
Gwen disappears from the story for extended periods, while the film focuses instead on Yabuki borrowing money, meeting sex workers and dealing with low-level criminals and mob bosses.
A major action sequence arrives abruptly, while several important plot developments come from other characters contacting Yabuki rather than from his own detective work.
The film therefore contains plenty of material, but the various elements do not consistently build toward one cohesive dramatic story.
7. Shun Oguri’s Performance as Yabuki
Shun Oguri’s performance as Yabuki is one of the film’s strongest elements.
Yabuki is presented as both a meth addict and a gambling addict, moving through scuzzy basements, dim baccarat halls and back alleys. Miike films many of these sequences in steady, visually controlled frames, a contrast with the nervous handheld approach of Ferrara’s original.
In ordinary moments, Yabuki walks slowly with his head lowered. After taking meth or making a disastrous bet, his behavior suddenly becomes more violent and energetic.
His physical jerks and facial contortions sometimes recall Nicolas Cage’s performance in Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
Early in the film, Yabuki can be both comic and captivating. He has a warm rapport with two sex workers and asks favors from a young drug dealer.
His children also recognize that something is wrong with their father. While driving them to school, they warn him not to fall asleep at the wheel and tell him to treat their mother better.
The children understand their father’s situation while still holding onto hope. Yabuki does not answer them.
That early family material gives the character a more distinct emotional dimension, although the children do not return to the story later.
Despite the increasingly fragmented narrative, Oguri’s performance continues to hold attention.
8. Violence and Miike’s Style
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo contains several grisly murders and scenes of body mutilation. Victims have their heads pulverized or beheaded, while other bodies are reduced to minced meat.
Given Miike’s reputation, however, the Guardian describes the film’s violence as comparatively restrained. The review suggests that this could potentially represent a concession to the North American audience, although that is an interpretation rather than an established production fact.
Variety highlights the film’s Tokyo nightlife, neon clubs and criminal underworld. Yet these settings do not consistently generate the distinctive atmosphere associated with Miike’s earlier films.
The Guardian specifically places the film in the context of Miike’s previous work, including Audition and Ichi the Killer, where his filmmaking has often combined J-horror violence with formal visual elegance.
In Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, the violence is present, but it is not always matched by an equally distinctive atmosphere or a narrative structure capable of sustaining the film’s many ideas.
9. Lily James and Gwen Birgssen
Lily James’ FBI agent Gwen Birgssen has received criticism from both major reviews.
Variety describes her Southern accent as difficult to understand, while the Guardian similarly finds her extended American drawl overdone.
Gwen’s character occupies an awkward position between the film’s cross-continental storyline and Miike’s Japanese crime world. Her dialogue also contains genre-like platitudes that can make the character feel disconnected from the rest of the film.
The language barrier between Gwen and Yabuki is another element of their interaction. Yabuki speaks some English without effectively acknowledging the communication problem, creating additional awkwardness in their scenes.
Gwen’s investigation into Megan initially appears to offer a bridge between the American and Japanese storylines. However, her subplot ultimately fails to connect strongly with the larger narrative.
As a result, James’ character spends substantial portions of the film separated from the central Yabuki storyline, limiting the impact of what initially looks like an important connection between the two characters.
10. Comparison With the Previous Bad Lieutenant Films
Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant starred Harvey Keitel as a morally degraded, cocaine-addicted police officer facing a spiritual crisis amid crime and injustice.
Werner Herzog’s 2009 Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans featured Nicolas Cage in the lead role.
According to Variety, both Ferrara’s and Herzog’s films pushed their violent lawmen toward forms of spiritual agony. Miike’s film follows a different path with Yabuki, whose Yakuza background and addictions become central to his character.
At several points, Miike appears to corner Yabuki within the frame, only for the narrative to reset and move elsewhere.
The Guardian considers Oguri’s Yabuki derivative of Keitel’s original character in some respects. His physical performance also contains echoes of Cage’s previous interpretation.
The earlier films could be chaotic, but their narratives were more cohesive. Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo has a more fragmented structure, even though Oguri’s performance continues to maintain audience interest as the story becomes increasingly scattered.
11. The Film’s Final Act
The film’s first genuinely intriguing turn arrives roughly 15 minutes before the credits, according to Variety.
By that point, however, there is very little runtime left to develop the new direction. The limited time reduces the dramatic effect of the development.
The ending consequently feels like a series of loosely interconnected scenes rather than a fully resolved narrative.
The Guardian similarly finds that the story spreads into several directions before weakening toward the end.
Even so, the film retains some smaller comic pleasures. Yabuki becomes increasingly exasperated when dealing with the people around him, creating moments in which the detective appears to be surrounded by a world that is even more dysfunctional than he is.
Those moments provide flashes of character and humor within a film whose larger narrative structure remains unsettled.
12. Production Credits
Director: Takashi Miike
Screenplay: Daisuke Tengan
Camera: Nobuyasu Kita
Editor: Naoichiro Sagara
Music: Koji Endo
Producers: Jeremy Thomas, Sam Pressman, Naoaki Kitajima, Misako Saka
Executive producers: Paula Paizes, Ivan Kelava, Peter Watson, Yuzo Kuwahara, Nobuyuki Iinuma, Tetsu Fujimura, Max Loeb, Mike Apgar, Tom Quinn, Sarah Colvin, Kristen Figeroid, Laurel Charnetsky and Alainée Kent
Cast: Shun Oguri, Lily James, Shotaro Mamiya, Liv Morgan, Jun Kunimura and Hiroshi Tachi
