Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Tokyo Swindlers’ On Netflix, A Different Kind of Heist Series

Usually in heist series, the team goes on one big score before they call it quits. But in Tokyo Swindlers , the team that’s behind the heist is going on it because the team’s leader get a visceral thrill from it. That’s one of the things that sets this show apart from others in the heist genre.

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Green Glove Gang’ Season 2 On Netflix, Where The Trio Of Senior Thieves Unretire To Try One Last Heist

Opening Shot: In a wooded area of North America, a Japanese man tells one of his fellow moose hunters that he’s a land swindler. A bear attacks the guide, and the Japanese man shoots it in the mouth as it’s barreling towards him.

The Gist: Harrison Yamanaka (Etsushi Toyokawa) is recounting this story to his protege, Takumi (Go Ayano), recalling the ecstasy he felt in that moment. He invites Takumi to become a land swindler; after all, a land swindler ruined Takumi’s life, so “This time, why don’t you push someone else down into hell?”

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Crooks’ On Netflix, Where An Unlikely Friendship Starts After A Robbery Goes Really Wrong

Land swindlers find an imposter to pose as the seller of a piece of land, negotiate a deal with a buyer, and disappear once the money is transferred. It’s a complex operation; Harrison’s team needs a negotiator like Takumi, a legal adviser like Goto (Pierre Taki), a master forger like Nagai (Shota Sometani), a person like Reiko (Eiko Koike) to find and train the imposters and an informer like Takeshita (Kazuki Kitamura) to find opportunities.

We see the team in action as they prepare a man named Sasaki (Takeo Gozu) to pose as the elderly owner of a property the team wants to “sell”. Goto and Reiko wonder why Harrison wants this somewhat senile man to act as the imposter, but Harrison has his reasons. He’s an experienced land swindler, having done so during the ’80s economic bubble. The police have caught him and his crew before, but were never able to make charges stick, mainly because in the previous case, the imposter had dementia and couldn’t match up his statement to the others.

CLICK HERE TO GET EMAILS FROM DECIDER

The group has found a mark for the property, a company called Mike Homes, and while their negotiator is tough and even asks the old man what supermarkets he goes to in his neighborhood, Takumi and Goto figure out ways to get around the questioning and all of the paperwork (expertly forged by Nagai, including the owner’s seal) is signed and the money transferred.

It’s a big score, a billion yen (around $6.5 million), but Harrison wants the group to go for a bigger target the next time, citing the ecstasy and thrill of going for a score that is “so big, there will be dead bodies everywhere.” Takeshita knows of such a site, which sits behind a temple, is owned by an old nun who is not willing to sell, and is worth 10 billion yen (about $65 million) on the open market.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In a lot of ways, Tokyo Swindlers is more or less a heist show on the scale of Money Heist and The Gold .

Our Take: Based on Ko Shinjo’s book of the same name , Tokyo Swindlers plays out like a heist show, as we mentioned above. Essentially, it’s a group of thieves and con artists, each member having different talents, all getting ready to land the biggest score of their lives.

The fact that this group isn’t robbing a vault or a museum but essentially conning companies into buying land that the group doesn’t own makes the show have a bit of an interesting twist. But the dynamics are the same, with the members of the team having their own stories, the leader being questioned, a trusted confidant to the leader being suspicious of everyone else, and law enforcement going after the leader even though he’s been elusive so far.

Watching the first swindle go down was a good introduction to how skilled the team is, and it sets up the bigger swindle that will occupy the rest of the season. The characters are skilled at what they do, and Harrison has tricks up his sleeve that help things along. Though from what we’ve seen, those tricks are made more dramatic by the show’s editing than anything else.

There’s also a reason why Harrison directs the team to recruit doddering seniors to be impostors, with one reason being that they can’t turn on them if they get caught and generally are not in a state where they can stand trial. The fate of Sasaki speaks to perhaps another reason why he likes to recruit these people, but we’re not quite sure where that aspect of the story is going.

Sex and Skin: None so far.

Parting Shot: Harrison drinks scotch while watching Sasaki’s fate on a video.

Sleeper Star: If anyone, it’s Pierre Taki as Goto, who seems to be a master at redirecting targets when they express any modicum of doubt.

Most Pilot-y Line: The show’s director zooms in on the label on the bottle of whatever scotch Harrison is drinking. Is it product placement or just an indication of his expensive tastes?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Tokyo Swindlers is basically a heist show, but it’s a heist show that has set up a pretty interesting heist with an interesting team of con artists trying to make the big score.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

For more entertainment news and streaming recommendations, visit decider.com