On paper, hiring Takashi Miike to add his own spin to Bad Lieutenant, an unlikely franchise stemming from Abel Ferrara’s controversial 1992 film, makes perfect sense. Edward R. Pressman, the late producer of the original, made the inspired choice to create a spiritual successor with Werner Herzog in 2009’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which added its own gonzo energy to the template of a corrupt policeman glancing back at redemption on a highway to hell. Another 17 years later, the series has returned, now in the hands of Pressman’s son Sam while one of Japan’s most prolific and eccentric directors takes the helm.
Thus it’s shocking that Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo arrives with a thud. A dull, insipid, lazy take on a formula designed to let loose, Miike and screenwriter Daisuke Tengan (a collaborator on Audition and 13 Assassins) throw out a series of uninspired plot threads that mostly go nowhere. It’s hard to believe the same person behind titles like Visitor Q, Gozu, and Ichi the Killer made this shrug of a film, but those films debuted more than 20 years ago. A lot can change over that time, and not for the better.
Following in the footsteps of Harvey Keitel and Nicolas Cage, Shun Oguri plays detective Yabuki, who we learn via an opening title card used to head a team investigating the Yakuza until new laws forced the gangs to disband in the 2000s. One would think this period of time would be prime for bad lieutenant-ing, but Miike keeps us in the present day, where a divorced Yabuki spends his days taking meth, racking up gambling debts, and screwing prostitutes. He’s effectively useless to the rest of his department, save for periodic consulting around crimes that involve former Yakuza members.
Two grisly discoveries start the plot with a limp-wristed push. The first is a Yakuza member found tied up with his head twisted 180 degrees. The second, and the closest this film comes to an evocative image, involves another gangster who’s been hacked into meatballs and left outside for crows to eat. Both are assumed to be linked to Ishizuka (Shôtarô Mamiya), a former associate who just got out of prison. Yabuki remembers Ishizuka from his past days, seen in flashbacks that pull the generic “tortured cop” card over the murder of his former partner, but he’s unbothered by the cases, instead seeing them as opportunities to trade intel with creditors to forgive his debts. Around the same time, FBI Agent Gwen (Lily James) gets partnered with Yabuki to search for the missing daughter of a high-profile U.S. politician (Liv Morgan).
These storylines half-assedly link once it’s discovered that this missing daughter is the one doing the head-twisting, while Ishizuka’s revenge quest has spiritual ties that will be completely forgotten about by the time credits roll. Oguri’s performance as Yabuki has no charm, no sauce, no flavor. The film can’t even muster up an excuse to paper over the presence of James and Morgan as necessities for additional financing from producer and U.S. distributor NEON; both are crammed into this sad clown car of a script. At least James and Morgan, unlike Oguri, make an effort to bring some freakish energy to proceedings via, respectively, a ridiculous Southern drawl and an obsession with sushi. But James’ performance is all loud choices with no logic, while Morgan barely gets any screen time. The entire missing woman subplot doesn’t even resolve so much as stop in place, Morgan’s character just appearing in the final act.
Miike directs while asleep at the wheel; periodic bursts of gory violence look more like an obligation to expectations than actual decisions. A car chase and club brawl that unfold with little spatial awareness or coherence sag like wet laundry alongside everything else. This operates at the same frequency as TV-movie schlock, and not in any compelling way if you’re aware of Miike’s past, superior output. If the filmmakers can’t be bothered to put in the work to make a good, depraved time, there’s no reason why viewers should waste theirs. Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo might be terrible, but with producer Pressman intending to continue his father’s legacy, this may amount to little more than a bump along a world tour of authoritative debauchery. I guess we’ll have to wait another 17 years to find out.
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. by NEON.
