A giddily stylish tribute to classic Hollywood film noir Kaizo Hayashi's Maiku Hama is one of the most unlikely characters ever to emerge in Japanese film. Just think about that name for a second. Maiku Hama. Mike Hammer. Drop a private eye clearly modeled on Mickey Spillane's famous creation into the middle of Japanese yakuza culture and you're bound for some fascinating culture clashes. Make that P.I. a walking style anachronism and fill out your cast with cult icons like Jo Shishido (Branded to Kill) and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and you clearly have something unusual on your hands. The Yokohama detective has been through a couple of incarnations now but Kino has just brought the complete original film trilogy from the mid nineties to North American DVD, the latter two volumes hitting DVD for the first time.
The Most Terrible Time In My Life, the first film in the trilogy, is the strongest of the lot. Shot in Cinemascope in glorious black and white and set to a sharp, jazzy soundtrack the film's remarkable sense of style is immediately apparent. Though it is set in contemporary Japan you're only tipped to that fact by paying attention to the secondary characters. Hama himself, with his remarkably large and stylish wardrobe and vintage convertible, and his immediate circle all seem to live in some sort of 1950's America time warp. Hama runs his detective agency – specializing in missing persons, particularly illegal aliens – out of the projectionist's office of a classic old movie house.
Once the film gets rolling it quickly becomes clear that there is more to the Hama films than just style, however. When he befriends a shy Taiwanese waiter at the local mahjong parlor Hama is quickly drawn into a world of imported assassins and a brewing turf war between the indigenous yakuza and the Hong Kong and Taiwanese triads trying to muscle in. As the film progresses the sly humor and tribute elements to the film gradually give way to themes of family loyalty – a major recurrent theme in these films – and systemic racism while also developing into a taut little thriller. In the end The Most Terrible Time In My Life manages to stand both as a loving homage to film noir and a worthwhile entry into the noir canon itself.
With the second film in the series – The Stairway to the Distant Past – it becomes clear that Hayashi is not content to ride on his past successes, is not willing to let his character stagnate. There are some major tonal shifts in this film that may surprise those who simply wanted more of what The Most Terrible Time served up, most notably the move away from black and white and into color photography and a general absence of the playful mood of the first. This one becomes much more serious in very short order.
Gang tensions are again running high in Yokohama. Hama's business is bad, his car has been repossessed and – most troubling – his long absent mother has returned to town, threatening to upset the life Hama has built for himself and the younger sister he has raised since they were abandoned in childhood. When a crooked cop leans on Hama to investigate a series of robberies on the riverfront – an area ruled with an iron fist by the mysterious Man In White – Hama has no choice but to cooperate and take on the dangerous job. After all, if the cops shut him down who will take care of his sister? And it's not like he can afford to pay the bills with the lost pet jobs he's been taking, anyway …
With Stairway Hayashi is clearly aiming to give his character the depth he will need if he is able to survive as more than a novelty. He's trying to make Hama less of a quirky tribute and more of an actual, three dimensional person. As long range plans go, it's a good one but what's good for the character isn't necessarily the best thing for this particular film as a piece of entertainment as this one is considerably more somber than Hama's loopy debut. The Stairway to the Distant Past is still a very good film, but it is a significantly different one. And whatever the rational the move away from black and white just plain hurts.
The third film in the series, The Trap, is an unusual beast. When the film opens our perpetually down-on-his-luck hero is actually on a bit of a roll. Business is booming, he's got a new girlfriend, Akane has been accepted into college … he's even upgrading his office equipment. Things couldn't be better, right? Well, it wouldn't be noir if things went well for Hama and the story takes a dark turn when a mysterious masked figure arrives in Hama's office and asks Maiku to follow and find him. Thniking the visit a prank, Hama ignores it. But soon bodies begin to turn up throughout Yokohama and when one of the corpses has Hama's fingerprints on it he soon finds himself on the run from the police while trying to unravel the mystery …
The Trap is simultaneously the darkest and the lightest of the bunch. With its tale of serial killers and mental illness, not to mention some of Hama's closest friends taking some serious damage, The Trap certainly has the grimmest storyline of the three films. But, on the other hand, it also features a masked villain straight out of low budget serials, a fantastic sequence in which Hama's mentor – played as always by Jo Shishido – gets to rally the troops, and a little bit of spy gadgetry. The Trap tries to play it both ways and does a surprisingly good job of it. The dark elements ratchet the tension up while the lighter parts keep things hopping along.
As a series the films work equally well approached as a genre love-in or legitimate thrillers in their own right. Director / screenwriter Kaizo Hayashi changes things up just enough from film to film to keep things from becoming repetitive while also clearly maintaining the core of his character. While there's a bit of a decline in the final two films when compared to the first all are certainly worthwhile.
And what of the DVDs? While Kino has done significantly better on these than Facets did on the one Hama television movie to make it to DVD – The Forest With No Name – there are still some significant issues. The discs are bare of any significant extras which, while disappointing, isn't particularly surprising for a Japanese film of this vintage. More significant are two issues with the transfer. First, the films appear to have been mastered off of a Beta source. Second, although they are in their correct aspect ratios they are non-anamorphic transfers. My guess is that Kino based these discs on earlier Japanese editions and simply used what was available but these are so strong visually – particularly The Most Terrible Time In My Life – that they would really benefit tremendously from a clean up, remaster and a solid, high definition anamorphic transfer. With better transfers these are a definite must buy. As they stand they are more likely a rental.