Giri / Haji (2019 Writer Joe Barton)

Takehiro Hira is good, calm and world-weary, with a soft spot for his errant daughter Aoi Okuyama; Kelly Macdonald seems to simper a bit for an unpopular detective who's nicked one of her own. Yosuke Kubozuka is the missing brother. With Will Sharpe, Masahiro Motoki (the Yakuza boss), Charlie Creed-Miles, Tony Pitt, Yuko Nakamura (mother having to put up with all the family - good), Sophia Brown (hit woman), Justin Long. And: Mitsuko Oka (bitter grandmother), Anna Sawai as the young mother, Tony Way (who was one of the stoned shoppers in Convenience, also After Life) and a special mention to Katsuya, Kenzo's police department No. 2, who is nicely charismatic and funny.

Even the recaps are beautifully done in visuals and writing

Interesting music, dry humour, changes of aspect ratio, flashes to B&W, animation, flashbacks, sudden violence (when Brown shoots Long - who's going on rather - it's really funny), cross-cutting (e.g. between two tense shooting scenes), sudden showers of rain (that's the way it ends) all keep it interesting. The way Ray suddenly appears to save the ladies in the last episode is told in a very Tarantino way, and that episode also features a monochrome continuous take interpretive dance scene on a rooftop!

Feel of Japanese family is nicely real; nice touches of humour throughout. Very interesting, unusual and distinctive series.

I was amazed no one was killed. (Well, I say no one...)

First four and last episode directed by Julian Farino and photographed by David Odd, other three by Ben Chessell and Piers McGrail; music by Adrian Johnston.

Not a co-production: Sister Pictures, for BBC.