Big news for fans of wacky Japanese comedy and serious faced Yakuza drama: reports indicate that Sega is in talks to produce a movie based on its best-selling Yakuza games. Variety broke the story that Sega would be working on a film based on the franchise with the help of 1212 Entertainment and Wild Sheep Content.
1212 Entertainment and Wild Sheep are currently searching for writers to create a script, which will be based on Sega’s second best-selling IP (no surprise, but Sonic the Hedgehog owns the top spot). The games are widely praised for their charismatic performances, over the top action gameplay, and uniquely Japanese sense of humor.
Most of the Yakuza games focus on protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, a very serious-faced man who was raised by an adoptive Yakuza father. As a result, Kiryu often finds himself tangled up in elaborate Yakuza schemes. His motivations usually begin small, protecting or clearing the name of someone close to him, and typically end with him thwarting some diabolical plan to take over the entire Japanese underworld/the entirety of Japan. Along the way he inevitably gets roped into all sorts of mischief as well, from running a hostess club, to playing the crane games in arcades, to eating as much food as he can in as many restaurants as possible.
One of the series’ other iconic characters is Goro Majima, best known for being an absolute madman. He is also playable in a couple of the games, and positions himself as a sort of friendly rival to Kiryu, demanding they face off in combat whenever possible. When he’s not throwing down with Kiryu, Majima also gets involved in weird misadventures: rescuing young girls, starting his own construction company, and also running a hostess club, which is something the games seem to think is a really important part of living in Japan.
All of this is to say that Yakuza has a huge amount of potential and could make a really great movie if all the material is considered carefully. It does raise the question of who might be cast for this project, and who the movie will be advertised towards. The games are a uniquely Japanese experience, to the point where most of them don’t even have English localizations, and the film could risk losing some of that spirit if they focus too hard on appealing to American audiences. Regardless, that all remains to be seen, as the film is clearly in a very early state.
Source: Variety
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