Ryoma Takeuchi brings Kiryu Kazuma to life with passion, honoring the beloved Yakuza character’s transformation from childhood to gangster. Actor Kento Kaku joins the cast as the antagonist, enhancing the bond and complexity between characters in the TV adaptation of Like a Dragon.
The actors reveal the challenges of embodying their roles, from intense physicality to the pressure of respecting such a well-loved game series in the show. Ryoma Takeuchi’s family was seated in front of me at a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, and I watched his mom shed a tear of pride as the packed audience cheered her son on stage.
The Japanese actor plays Kiryu Kazuma in Amazon Prime’s upcoming TV adaptation of Like a Dragon: Yakuza, and while his role in the drama is deadly serious, he himself was all smiles at the convention. With trailers to show, questions to answer, and plenty of behind the scenes information to share, the panel at SDCC was our first extended look at the show ahead of its October debut.
While there are concerns that the game’s playful tone has been shed for the show, Takeuchi himself is keeping it alive. He saw the Dragon Ball Z shirt I was wearing as he sat down for our interview, smiled excitedly, and hit me with a powerful “Kamehameha” before telling me a bit about his role being a rough and tumble, ass-kicking gangster.
“One of the highlights of being in the character is the ten-year gap of being a kid in 1995, and then growing up to be a Yakuza, a strong, masculine guy in 2005,” he explained, speaking through his translator. “The transformation between those ten years is something we really focused on.”
These trailers and clips weren’t the only reveals at the convention – actor Kento Kaku was announced as the show’s antagonist Akira Kishikiyama, lifelong friend turned enemy of Kiryu.
In our interview immediately following the panel, I asked Takeuchi and Kaku both how familiar they had been with the Like a Dragon series before accepting their roles. They’d said on stage that the enormity of their roles, adapting characters as beloved as these two essential Yakuza characters and knowing how passionate the longtime fans can be, wasn’t to be understated.
Takeuchi told me he was “definitely in the know” before accepting the role, but had never played himself and didn’t realize just how globally influential it had become. Kaku, having his questions translated to Japanese but answering in English himself, agreed, adding, “We learned today how big this project is!”
The actors have just as much chemistry in real life as they do on screen, telling me they spent time hanging out off-set to enrich the complicated bond between their characters.
Kiryu and Akira were both orphaned at the same orphanage as children, growing up like brothers and turning to a life of crime to get by. Kiryu was framed for murder in 1995 and spent ten years in prison, bulking up and learning to fend for himself.
In that time, Akira took up the helm as the head of the series’ infamous Dojima Clan. The game (and now show) has a complicated relationship with criminality, exploring Japan’s underbelly with a grim respect, depicting various shades of life as a Yakuza.
But are the pair nervous as to how the real Yakuza might react to their roles? “I have no chance to meet the real Yakuza, definitely no, I hope,” Kaku laughs, while Takeuchi admits that resonating “emotionally” with the Yakuza would be an outstanding compliment.
More than the fear of actual gangsters, the biggest challenge was the strain of the physicality in the acting they had to do, filming during a notably balmy Japanese summer. We saw plenty of scenes from an underground fight club wherein Kiryu and Akira duke it out, and both emphasize how brutal that particular shoot was under the lights in a hot basement with nowhere for the heat to escape.
Kaku has had a handful of action roles, with the most recent being House of Ninjas, and is no stranger to the pressures they can exert. Takeuchi, meanwhile, told panel attendees of his grueling fitness regimen to prepare for the role.
He had been eating clean and working out extensively to develop Kiryu’s unique fighting style, joking about having to begrudgingly go back to that strict diet should the show be renewed for a second season. While the story is an original screenplay merely inspired by the games, both actors and the various producers at the SDCC panel say they aim to pay respect and homage to such a well-loved series – even if they revealed there’s no karaoke coming in the first season.
The trailer is now available online following the exclusive reveal at the San Diego Comic-Con panel, and the first half of the six-part series will debut on Amazon Prime on October 24.
