Filming Underway On New BBC/Netflix Global Drama 'Giri/Haji'

Filming is underway in London on BBC Two and Netflix's new global drama series 'Giri/Haji' (translating as 'Duty/Shame').

'Giri/Haji', written by BAFTA nominee Joe Barton ('Humans'), is a thriller that explores the butterfly effect of one murder over two cities, London and Tokyo. The drama will play out across eight episodes in both Japanese and English as the action moves between the cities, traversing the narrative's multiple time frames.

Stars Takehiro Hira ('Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai') and Yosuke Kubosuka ('Go', 'Silence') will lead the Japanese cast. They play Kenzo (Hira), and Yuto (Kubosuka), once devoted and now estranged brothers, driven to opposite sides of the world by the spiralling consequences of one violent split-second decision. They are joined by Masahiro Motoki ('Departures'), Yuko Nakamura, Aoi Okuyama, Mitsuko Oka, Togo Igawa, Kazuyuki and Yoshiki Minato. The UK cast sees Kelly Macdonald ('Boardwalk Empire', 'T2 Trainspotting'), Justin Long ('New Girl', 'Live Free or Die Hard'), Will Sharpe ('Flowers'), Charlie Creed-Miles ('Ripper Street', 'Peaky Blinders') and Tony Pitts ('Jamestown', 'Peaky Blinders') line up across a bitter divide as the ramifications of the murder erupt across the globe from London to Toyko.

Kenzo (Hira), a Tokyo detective and family man, is abruptly dispatched to London by his superiors in the police department to search for his missing younger brother Yuto (Kubosuka), the honour of his family at stake. Arriving, he becomes drawn into the shadowy world of Abbott (Creed-Miles) and Vickers (Long), a once lucrative business partnership now under threat, as the former looks now to the East to expand his empire. Distant from everything familiar to him, Kenzo unexpectedly finds hope in a remarkable makeshift family of Londoners, each in turn confronting the spiralling effects of fateful past decisions. Among them is charismatic rent boy Rodney (Sharpe) and Sarah (Macdonald), a Met detective investigating the London murder, who begins to present a delicate threat to Kenzo's marriage.

The show will be directed by BAFTA winner and Emmy nominee Julian Farino ('Entourage', 'Marvellous') and produced by Jane Featherstone's Sister Pictures ('The Split', 'Broadchurch', 'Cleaning Up').

Creator and screenwriter Joe Barton said: "Developing this show with Sister Pictures, Netflix, and the BBC has been an amazing creative experience and now I'm incredibly excited to see it come to life with such a diverse and brilliant cast and crew. They're all ridiculously talented which has the added bonus of making me look better. Which was my goal all along, frankly."

Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama, added: "Giri/Haji is unlike anything we've ever seen before on British TV. Its unique blend of suspense, pathos and wit is a testament to Joe Barton's astonishing imagination and talent as a writer. It's thrilling to see the series come to life in Julian's hands and in the hands of this unique and extraordinary cast."

'Giri/Haji' will make its world premiere on BBC Two. Netflix will stream the series globally outside of the UK.