Harry Potter the Yakuza film

 Potter finally did it- he became a true Gokudo!

Insanity time! You know all of those AI image videos that depict various pop culture entertainment products reimagined in the style of various 80's films? "Dark Souls as an 80's Dark Fantasy Movie", "Cyberpunk 2077 in the style of Bladerunner", etc? Quite fun content and perhaps the only AI image generation that isn't embroiled in several undulating piles of controversial waste currently, give it a couple more weeks before the 'collective for the conservation of original 80's movie concept art' comes out swinging with Twitlonger. It was within the midst of all this endless computer created art mixed with the brutal tidal wave of creative instability that is the broiling minds of lower rung Youtube creators, that I discovered a video which created such a combination I wouldn't have even thought to conceptualise. 'Harry Potter as an 80's Yakuza film'.

It was another smash hit from Midjourney, of course; creating a sloth of Japanese cinema tinted screenshots of what looked like three or four Asian actors cosplaying as the entire wider Harry Potter cast because that system has a problem with creating distinct facial structures between pictures. But even then it absolute nailed the most important aspects of videos like this, inspiring the mind through it's range of pictures that started with Yakuza Hagrid meeting young huge-haired Harry Potter screaming through such classics as Crackhead Dobby and tatted-up Voldemort (who somehow looks almost more like Ralph Finnes than the movie Voldemort does, even with the Asian imaginary recasting) and of course, Adult Harry wielding his authentic period wand, a handgun, towards the screen. Before finishing on a reflective and ponderous flash-back image of Asian Hagrid and Asian Harry, standing in the middle of a beat-down back-alley market which I can only assume is 'Horizont Alley', the completely distinct universe version of the original Diagon Alley! (Huh? Horizont Alley actually exists in the lore thanks to Tencent's Wizard's Awakened? Dammit, J.K. you and your team took all the stupidest ideas already, didn't ya!)

And obviously this hasn't been something that I can just forget about and move on from. You don't just move past an event in your life that has totally changed your outlook on what it is to be human. There is no singular me anymore; just the person before they saw this video, and the thing that remains afterwards. I have to ruminate on what I've seen, digest it, and theorize a manner in which such a incredible imagination could be coherently brought to life instead of the actual reboot of the franchise that Warner Bros is apparently considering within the next couple of years. Hey, it's either this or desperately trying to ragebait by picking some random beloved game like Persona 4 Golden and accusing it of being misogynistic through some of the most eye-watering 'seeing just what I want to see' logical fallacies possible because I'm too creatively bankrupt to make anything original or of value. Huh, where did that come from? I don't know, try asking the headcases over at Eurogamer.

So this Harry Potter Yakuza concept I saw posed some interesting approaches to the narrative. Firstly, it focused on none of the specific events or characters of a single book and instead picked through a slew of favourites throughout the entire franchise. Voldemort, Dobby, Sirius, Bellatrix; all whilst showing the transition of Harry from thick-lensed child to what looks like a gun-wielding officer for some sort of special police task force. I've chosen to take this on the chin and come up with the basic outline of a Yakuza themed Harry Potter which can feature every one of these characters inside of a single movie, whilst providing the typical beats you'd expect from this style of cinema. As informed not by my wide knowledge of Japanese cinema, unfortunately, but my heavily familiarity with the Yakuza games which themselves, lo and behold, take many cues from such films and even riff on a few now and then.

Firstly, we have Harry coming under the protection of Hagrid. Now I think we can conflate the dual murders of Harry's Parents into his sudden adoption as one event. Instead of being a baby, Harry will be a young boy who witnesses the Yakuza Captain called Voldemort come to squeeze money out of the Potter parents only to have James try and stand up to him. Voldemort will kill them both, yadda yadda, and Harry will witness it from afar, establishing the singular motivation that will colour and pollute all of his actions from then onwards. We can have Hagrid be a friend of the family or someone with that sort of connection that finds Harry the next day and accepts him under his wing recognising the boy has nowhere left to go in life. This is the first major format change from Harry Potter, as I fail to see a apt replacement for the concept of a Wizarding school within this crime drama universe, so I've decided to axe it entirely in place for an odd-couple set-up with gruff and personally troubled Hagrid raising the traumatised and quiet Harry Potter.

With this more terrestrial take on the Harry Potter mythos, the process of Harry Potter growing up through the years and meeting the various Yakuza-fied personalities of the world could be rather deftly switched in with your Yakuza typical learning to grow on the mean streets montage. You have the increadibly bizarre looking ginger Asian Ron as the best friend who exists to largely be a humanising plot point when his life is thrown into danger in the third act, you've got Asian Dumbledore who has such 'dojo master' energy seeping off of him I couldn't possible deprive the man of a role there- but aside from that everyone else would fit into their natural roles. Malfoy is the schoolyard bully who teaches Harry about everyday cruelty and serves as an example of representative justice when Harry learns martial arts and brutalises Malfoy only to be chastised for not enacting his vengeance on those who truly deserve it. And Hermione would either be the love interest who tragically dies at the end or the love interest of Ron who runs away with him at the end. Those are the two possible roles for her character in this genre, I'm sorry that's just the way it goes.

Where it'll get interesting will be leading into the later half of the movie wherein Harry, grown old enough to experience the rights and wrongs of the world and fiercely devoted to the ideals of justice, though skewered by his lens of vengeance, joins the Police force for the opportunity to directly strike out at the Yakuza which cost him his family. (Against the insistence of his new adoptive father Hagrid, of course.) Harry would distinguish himself in his pursuit of petty Yakuza operations as he works his way up to the bosses, but of course the stalemate preferred between Yakuza and the Police means that Harry rapidly gains far more enemies than friends. Even his childhood friends, all of whom have settled into more calm civilian professions, can't understand why he can't move on and keeps kicking the hornet's nest. Strapped for friends and feeling alone, Harry ends up coming into contact with an old friend of his Father's that he has never met before. Sirius, his father's closet friend and confidant, and the only person who seems to happily feed Harry's vengeful desires, even reaching out with his own underworld contacts to help Harry reach deeper into the Yakuza operations.

Together Harry and Sirius manage to ruffle the Yakuza clan such to the point where the Legendary Serpent himself is stirred, Voldemort. Not recognising which Cop is going rogue on his organisation, the curiosity of this doom-driven crusader intrigues the Yakuza enough to reach out to his cop contracts to look into Harry. This is when the stakes really ramp up. The Yakuza hit out, striking out at Harry's personal friends- kidnapping those he loves and brutally killing his adoptive father Hagrid to send a message. Enraged, yet more alone then ever, Harry stumbled into Voldemort's trap and finds himself face to face with the Snake king himself. What ensues would be a humiliation- Harry is battered and broken in front of his friends and those corrupt in the department who fed him the information that opened up this trap to begin with. And then the bombshell- in his investigations Voldemort discovered exactly who Harry was, and what's more- he knows what vengeance he wants. He finds it strange, however, that Harry hunts him so feverously, what when the man who sold out his Father and led Voldemort to his home that faithful day was no one than Sirius Black! (Cue the stereotypical twist moment!)

Harry is left to stew in this ponderous revelation, which he pulls before Sirius himself the next day. Sirius breaks down and reveals the source behind his many contacts. Turns out that Sirius, and James were once members of the Chinese Mafia (They love a bit of Chinese Mafia in these Yakuza movies) sent to infiltrate and muscle in to the Japanese mainland. Sirius was inelegant with his plans to seize control of the Japanese underworld, and despite his friend James' insistence he started leaning on contacts of the local Yakuza clans. The retaliation came swifter than Sirius expected, and not upon the head of the culprit at fault. Due to his hastiness, the overly eager and incautious Sirius unwittingly cost his best friend everything out of some selfish pursuit of personal glory- trying to prove something to himself regardless of how it effects others, snapping back to hurt him. Still, that shock had festered into a bitter rage. Sirius is ashamed, but not remorseful for the fact that he harnessed Harry's tragedy to use him as a weapon against the people he had hunted for so long, to do what he could not.

Such a revelation has a profound effect on Harry. Hadn't his own quest for vengeance led him somewhere similar? With the death of his foster father and the ongoing abduction of his friends? What was it that he really wanted out of all this, after all these years searching? Because the way he was going, it would end up being vengeance at the cost of everything and everyone. His few friends in the world. Was that something he could live with, was he prepared to carry that burden on his shoulders perhaps forever? Soul searching and personal confrontations leads Harry to realise the way he's been missing the forest for the trees. Gunning for his vengeance and ignoring the mess of the world around him, mess he was dutybound to manage, just as his foster father had taught him to do.

In this, the final act, Harry shifts his gears. Instead of pursuing the Yakuza, Harry turns his sight inwards towards the police, the very institution who had sold him out. Weeding out of the corruption he had blindly ignored for so very long and partnering properly with those that remain to go after Voldemort's many enterprises, the right way. Though he can't get his one on one with the man to take a life for the one that was stolen, he can hurt his enemy in a much longer lasting fashion- financially by targeting his fronts and shutting them down one by one using the information extracted from the department's corrupt. A clamping down that gets the Yakuza Captain feeling backed into a corner, and thus more inclined to do something stupid. And as it turns out, something stupid turns up sooner than anyone could have expected.

Feeling the clamps tighten around him, Voldemort knows he has to do something drastic to regain control of the city, and so he makes the boldest move that someone in his position can do- he employs his clan to attack the police station. His clan, afterall, is several tens of thousands of soldiers large, and there ain't but a couple thousand police men in the city. (Can you dig it?) What we have is a brutal procession where Voldemort's forces charge and overwhelm the city in a move where the Snake King believes himself to have crossed the line that no other Yakuza has done before, taking over an entire city. Harry and a small contingent of forces manage to barricade themselves away, but Voldemort's men are already kicking down their door to get to the one who spearheaded their anger. It's beginning to look like despite his best efforts, Harry's devotion to metering some sort of justice to his sworn enemy will lead him to his end. But just then, something miraculous happens.

Noise of scuffles start erupting from outside the station, the hundreds of men that Voldemort stormed the station with seem to be beset by someone. Confused, Voldemort has his men prepare for whoever would be foolish enough to attack a Yakuza captain, only to be stunned solid when in walks the Patriarch of his clan, Asian Grindlewald. (Yep, I'm roping in the prequels!) Like the rest of the clan, Grindlewald received Voldemort's call to action to storm this police station, only he found the absolute hubris of the order absolutely laughable. The balance of Yakuza and law enforcement, opposite facing pillars that together hold up society, is a sacred foundation of the Gokudo. Spitting in the face of that is the ultimate insult to the honour of the Yakuza, and a clear presentation that Voldemort's ambition has exceeded his capacity for discretion and respect. Attacking the police flies in the face of the clan, and of him, and an insult like that demands only one resolution. Grindlewald thus demands that Voldemort takes responsibility.

Recognising the trap he has been led into, set by Harry's careful campaign, the Yakuza captain has nowhere to turn to. All of his strength and influence was built into his role as a Yakuza boss, and now the only person higher than him has stripped him of all that authority, publicly. Recognising his destruction, Voldemort falls to his knees, just as one of Grindlewald's men rushes forward with the Tanto and cutting board, waiting for the fallen Captain to remove his own finger. Taking the blade in hand and catching the glint of his own shattered self in it's light, Voldemort sighs as he realises his only real option ahead of him. Thus, in a mad burst, Voldemort charges forth and plunges the Tanto into the heart of Grindlewald, instantly killing the clan Patriarch in front of everyone.

Everyone is stunned. On one hand they know they should rush to take down the man who attacked their beloved Patriarch, on the otherhand the undeniable power of the Snake King seemed to distort into an unstoppable, monstrous being even in the eyes of his former faithful. Recognising that even the wrath of his own group's walls can't hold him, Harry climbs out from his barricade to face the newly born Demon Snake. This time he doesn't face the man in the name of impassioned and brutal vengeance but of unshakable duty and burning heart for Justice. Not just the justice of the law, but also the Yakuza justice he just saw be trampled on by the disgraceful Captain. As much of a surprise to him though it is, Harry Potter now fights for the honour of the Yakuza as well as the police department.

What follows is a heartfelt and tense final confrontation between the two, wherein Harry's childhood of hardship and physical refinement fuel the passion of his martial form and resolve. Voldemort is stronger and more experienced then him, but he's also savage and attacks with the rage and abandon of a bloodied animal. Harry is calmer headed and swifter, relying on taught skill and reliable tactics. The same tactic he already manages to ensnare Voldemort with before. He weaves and ducks and teases at the Snake King's blows, frustrating and enraging the swinging Captain more and more whilst increasing the flurry of his blows. As Voldemort becomes more violent, he becomes sloppier. He doesn't even notice the glaring holes in his own guard before the first retaliation blow strikes him square across the mouth. And then another, and then the next. The Snake King can hardly comprehend what's happening as the relative boy has turned the tables on him and the Yakuza captain, who had wasted all his energy swinging at air, can merely sit and take it as he is pummelled to his knees, then off his feet, then to the ground in a pile.

Voldemort lies before Harry, broken and bloodied, his life at the end of Harry's bruised and purple first. All it would take is another sharp strike to finish the Snake King off, just as the watching crowds of Yakuza and even his fellow battered Police colleagues probably desire. Harry raises his fist, and in his mind he calls the images of his murdered parents for which he embarked on this revenge journey. But then the memory of Hagrid flashes before him, who wanted him to put away this vengeance which has consumed. Then of Dumbledore, who preached the responsibility of the martial artist for moderation and composure. And even of Sirius, who tried to manipulate Harry into this very position. In many ways Voldemort had ruined the trajectory of his life, killing his parents. But everything that had come of that made Harry who he was. Becoming a champion of the weak, wearing his proud police badge, standing up for the honour of his faithful and the criminals. What a height for a simple son of a mob member to rise. And what a distance it would be to fall if he threw it all away murdering his sworn enemy, now little more than a broken dog, beneath him. It wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't be right.

Harry lets his fist drop, but to his side. He replaces what would have been a killing blow with a metal cuff and before the gathered masses of cops and criminals reads the Snake King his rights and responsibilities as an arrestee. For the final scene, the trail of Voldemort plays on the station TV, with the still bruised and recovering police force all gathered around it. They celebrate as the former Yakuza Captain is sentenced, knowing his clan have forsaken him and the Snake will rot in his cell. Harry however, is the only member of the police not interested in the trial, sat at his desk. He already released his attachment to the case and his players the day he decided to spare Voldemort, and now he was free to commit his dedications elsewhere, such as to the framed photo he holds in hand, of himself and Hagrid back on the run-down market street in Horizont-Alley.

Which concludes my shotgun summary of my very own style Yakuza-style Harry Potter reimaging, informed as much by my own spur-of-the-moment ideas about what would make a good story as it was by the clichés that inform this style of cinema. With such a pitch, suddenly I find the rumour of an upcoming Harry Potter reboot not so ugly and insulting in the knowledge that it could turn out something like this. I mean it absolutely wouldn't, but it should. And I know there's so many characters I didn't include, but I was strapped for inspiration and pulled off what I could. If I were to try and make something more fully formed and including every major series character then my creative writing compulsions would force me to turn it into an actual book and this blog would have taken several months to write. Still, I hope this tease of Yakuza Potter scintillated some out there who dared to dream, like I did, what J.K.Rowling could be capable of is she wasn't such a grumpy and boring old witch.