Giri/Haji (Duty/Shame), a soulful thriller that explores the butterfly effect of one murder upon two very different cities, sees celebrated Japanese stars Takehiro Hira and Yosuke Kubozuka leading the Japanese cast.

They play Kenzo (Hira), and Yuto (Kubozuka), 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, Yuko Nakamura, Aoi Okuyama, Mitsuko Oka, Togo Igawa, Katsuya and Yoshiki Minato. The UK cast sees Kelly Macdonald (The Victim, Boardwalk Empire, T2 Trainspotting), Justin Long (New Girl, Live Free Or Die Hard), Will Sharpe (Defending The Guilty, Flowers), Charlie Creed-Miles (Ripper Street, Peaky Blinders) and Tony Pitts (Jamestown, Peaky Blinders) line up across a bitter divide.

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 (Kubozuka), 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 now looks 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 tumultuous, 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 action moves between Tokyo and London, as Kenzo attempts to stem the violence engulfing both cities and to confront his own part in it.

The 8x60’ is directed by Julian Farino and Ben Chessell, created and written by Joe Barton, and is executive produced by Jane Featherstone, Chris Fry, Julian Farino and Joe Barton for Sister Pictures, Ben Irving for BBC Two, and produced by Susie Liggat.

Giri/Haji will premiere on BBC Two on Thursday 17 October at 9pm. It will premiere globally on Netflix in 2020.