Alex Boden, producer of Max/Wowow series “Tokyo Vice,” outlined the hurdles and triumphs of filming the first U.S. studio streamer series shot entirely in Japan during a keynote at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The keynote was delivered as part of a Motion Picture Association event at the festival.
Created by J.T. Rogers and starring Ken Watanabe, Ansel Elgort, Rachel Keller and Kikuchi Rinko, the series followed a Western journalist working for a publication in Tokyo who takes on one of the city’s most powerful crime bosses.
Boden spent nearly two years in Japan producing both seasons of “Tokyo Vice.” Before production began in 2020, several international producers had advised against shooting entirely in Japan, citing lack of incentives, studio availability and complex permission processes.
“They’d gone to other countries like New Zealand for ‘The Last Samurai,’ Germany for ‘Speed Racer,’ Taiwan for ‘Silence’ – anywhere else but Japan,” Boden explained. “Filming on location in Japan was clearly a special experience to be treated with extreme caution, only if you really have to, was the clear message.”
The production faced significant challenges. “Uniquely in Japan, each location has its own location manager to look after the location owner from start to finish, out of respect to the owner, sending a substitute doesn’t really work,” Boden explained. “We had many locations in the center of the city – Shibuya, Akasaka, Shinjuku, Kabukicho – where we filmed in and around real host and hostess clubs with crowds everywhere. Nothing about this is easy, and the locations issue is compounded by there being so little space available in Tokyo. Western industry trailers and facilities trucks are out of the question. The industry here doesn’t use them or have space to park them. Smaller trucks are needed for the narrow streets, and it takes plenty of these to compensate.”
The team adapted to local customs while introducing international production practices. “Our approach has always been to be respectful of how things work in Japan. Things have been done the same way here for many years, and we elected to work the Japanese way from the start. This was absolutely the right decision,” Boden said.
The launch of the JLOX Japan location incentive program, which offers reimbursement of up to 50% of qualifying expenditure in the country, with an upper limit of JPY1 billion ($6.66 million) on each disbursement, was a watershed moment, Boden said. “There’s absolutely no doubt that JLOX Japan location incentive program is a game changer. Japan has been the only G7 country that didn’t have an incentive yet,” noted Boden, who reports near-weekly inquiries since the incentive’s introduction.
Looking ahead, Boden identified crucial infrastructure needs: “Some examples – filming on the Tokyo subway, we didn’t quite manage that one yet. Financial accounting is a much slower, more manual process in Japan, so we had to pull back and make concessions to cost reporting less frequently on a bi-weekly basis.”
On how the team pulled if off, Boden said, “I’ve been told by colleagues that we made it look too easy, but the honest answer is that with problem solving every day and being flexible as well as quick to respond, we trusted and empowered our local producers and crew in equal measure. The whole crew was ready to learn from each other.”
He’s now developing a partnership with Film Solutions to connect Japanese industry professionals with international experience, focusing on areas including “consulting on improvements of infrastructure and studios using international industry software for digital workflow.”
Japan’s newly re-elected Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s speech during the festival opening night highlighted the content industry’s export scale, comparing it to steel and semiconductor industries. Boden emphasized the urgency of seizing this moment: “The process succeeds best with direction, ambition and strategic investment, and it creates jobs, supports the export of local creativity and ensures that local stories are seen and heard.”
Current JLOX-backed productions include projects featuring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Brendan Fraser and a Bollywood film. James Cameron is developing “The Last Train from Hiroshima.”
“I learned so much from being here, and I know that all my colleagues, cast and crew members on “Tokyo Vice” did as well. Let’s continue to listen and learn from each other and move forward to a new golden age of film and TV production in Japan,” Boden concluded.
