“Someone threw a stone in a pond a long way away and we’re only just feeling the ripples.”

The eight-episode series, Giri/Haji, opens with a bang. Somewhere in London, a Japanese man fixes two drinks and opens the door. The next thing we know, he is dead, a sword lodged in his back.

In a Tokyo restaurant, men who work for Yakuza boss Fukuhara (Masahiro Motoki) are killed in a hail of bullets. It transpires that the sword belongs to Fukuhara and the man it killed was the nephew of a rival Yakuza head, Shin Endo.

In Tokyo, Chief Inspector Hayashi is worried that the peace of many years is on the verge of collapsing. And so, he, along with Fukuhara, go to detective Kenzo Mori’s (Takehiro Hira) home to tell him some hard truths: one, that his brother, Yuto (Yosuke Kubozuka), presumed dead, is likely alive considering it was he who last had the sword. Two, Kenzo has to go to London, find said brother and bring him back to Japan and thereby prevent a gang war. Three, it has to be done without the knowledge of the London police, necessitating the cover story of Kenzo travelling there for an exchange programme.

There are people trying to prevent Kenzo from finding Yuto as he realises soon enough when he discovers that his contact in London is working for a criminal named Abott (Charles Creed-Miles). While at a pub, Kenzo meets a junkie working as a rent boy, Rodney Yamaguchi (Will Sharpe). Rodney agrees to help Kenzo get entry into what he (Kenzo) thinks is an exclusive club. While there a man talks about a Yakuza who was in a fight (rendered in animation). And so the myth of Yuto builds (akin to but not on the same level of who is Snoke in Star Wars).

As for the story, it takes many a turn and makes room for numerous subplots. There is Kenzo’s sulky daughter, Taki (Aoi Okuyama), who runs away from Tokyo and finds freedom to be herself in London; Kenzo and Rei ( Yuko Nakamura) who feel trapped in their marriage; Kenzo’s actions many years ago when he helped his brother that has probably led to this situation; Sarah (Kelly Macdonald), the police detective conducting the programme, who is isolated from her coworkers owing to earlier actions; Abbot’s desire to go back to being a proper gangster and not listen to his American partner Vickers (Justin Long. Long time, no see)… it’s a lot.

The format of the series is such that the first three episodes don’t reveal much about Yuto; just snippets in the form of Kenzo’s memories (the aspect ratio changes to make sure the audience is well aware that it’s a flashback). The answers though come only in the fourth episode when we are given Yuto’s backstory; a little too late.

The series, while engrossing in the beginning, soon starts tapering out. The characters, interesting in the beginning, make such bone-headed decisions by the end, that it becomes impossible to feel any empathy, forget rooting for them. In the family dynamic of Kenzo, Rodney, Sarah and Taki, who come together out of a shared loneliness, it is Will Sharpe and Aoi Okuyama who shine. Charles Creed-Miles and Justin Long too do justice to their roles.

There is a strange moment towards the end that is tonally off when several characters take a timeout in the middle of a dramatic moment to give vent to their feelings through a contemporary dance (yes, it’s clear that it’s not actually happening, but that does not help).

Stray thoughts

1) Excellent drums with the opening credits

2) Taki meets a girl called Annie but at the end we don’t know what happens to her. Annie, are you ok? Are you ok, Annie?

3) Sarah seems to have no sense of priority unlike Abbot. When two people are thrown together in an intense situation and dead bodies are piling up, yes, things can happen (we have all watched Speed), but shouldn’t the state of your relationship be a question for much later?

Giri/Haji is currently streaming on Netflix