After the huge success of its Fallout series, Amazon has moved quickly to follow it up with another video game adaptation. Like a Dragon: Yakuza, a live-action Japanese production based on Sega’s long-running series of gangster soaps, drops on Prime Video worldwide on Oct. 25, 2024.
Well, half of it does, anyway. It’s a six-episode series, to be released in two chunks: the first three episodes on Oct. 25 and the next three on Nov. 1.
The show follows series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu and his friends across two time periods, in 1995 and 2005 — suggesting an adaptation of the first game, which came out in 2005 and followed Kazuma after he was released from a 10-year prison sentence. Kazuma is played by Ryoma Takeuchi, star of the Kamen Rider Drive series. The series is directed by Masaharu Take, with a story by Sean Crouch and Nakamura Yugo, and a Japanese screenplay by Yoshida Yasuhiro and Yamada Kana.
Amazon describes the show as “an original crime-suspense-action series” that “follows the life, childhood friends, and repercussions of the decisions of Kazuma Kiryu, a fearsome and peerless Yakuza warrior with a strong sense of justice, duty, and humanity.”
“Audience will enjoy the show’s human drama and conflict that unfolds around Kazuma Kiryu,” Takeuchi said in a statement. “Moreover, please take a look Kiryu’s intense fighting scenes with the Dragon tattoo on his back.”
Reading between the lines, it seems like Amazon has swooped in to acquire an already-filmed independent Japanese production, which explains why the show’s release is only a few months away. Amazon’s streaming muscle and deep pockets mean the show gets a simultaneous worldwide release, supported by subtitling and/or dubbing in 30 languages.
Given not just the success of Fallout and HBO’s The Last of Us but the acclaim and ratings bestowed on FX’s mostly Japanese-language Shōgun, this seems like a clever, opportunistic move from Amazon. To the point: “The unfettered appeal for Japanese content from within Japan and other parts of the world has been growing exponentially,” said James Farrell, head of international originals at Amazon MGM studios.
It’s not the first adaptation the Yakuza series has had, though — the first game was adapted into a typically anarchic movie by Takashi Miike in 2007.
