Like a Dragon’s live-action series had American audiences in mind, director says
Like a Dragon: Yakuza, Amazon’s live-action adaptation of Sega’s long-running Like a Dragon franchise, was initially proposed by the US-based Amazon MGM Studios and made with American audiences in mind, according to an article by Toyo Keizai Online.
Masaharu Take, the director of Like a Dragon: Yakuza, is quoted as saying that the project piqued his interest, not because it was based on a popular video game series, but because it was a story that portrayed Japanese people from an American perspective – which is why he decided to get on board. Take was involved with the adaptation’s script from its early stages, and he says he “felt strong elements of American film” in the initial draft.
He illustrates this point with the example of gunfights, which there were apparently a lot more of at first. “It would have been tough to include a lot of gunfights as is, so we worked back and forth, making revisions. For a Japanese drama, hand-to-hand action feels more natural than guns, but we tried to keep in mind what kind of drama Americans want to watch.”
The director also found the injection of American sensibilities into Yakuza: Like a Dragon refreshing, such as the addition of the sensitive topic of patricide. “The Americans purposely threw a taboo theme into the script. In reality, there are people who can’t move on unless they metaphorically kill their parents, so I found it interesting to make this a theme,” Take commented.
All 6 episodes of Like a Dragon: Yakuza’s first season are available exclusively on Prime Video.
