This month, Japan Society presents “So as to Dream: The Eternal Mysteries of Kaizô Hayashi,” the first North American retrospective on the director, with Hayashi appearing in person. As part of the event, the international 4K premieres of the filmmaker’s Maiku Hama trilogy are scheduled. Starring Masatoshi Nagase as Yokohama private eye Maiku Hama — a take on pulp writer Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer — they’ve been specially prepared for Japan Society screenings. This article (the first of a two-part series) focuses on that neo-noir series.
Japanese screenwriter and director Kaizô Hayashi has crafted films in various styles, and his love for genre films is quite apparent. For example, he has made tokusatsu features (including Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis, 帝都物語, Teito monogatari, 1988; and Tokyo: The Last War, 帝都大戦, Teito taisen, 1989) and television episodes (Power Rangers: Time Force, 2001), and the action comedy manga adaptation Cat’s Eye (キャッツ・アイ, Kyattsu Ai, 1997). Perhaps most well-known of his filmography is the Yokohama-set neo-noir trilogy featuring private detective Maiku Hama — each of which is co-written by Hayashi and Daisuke Tengan — from which spun-off the 2002 television series The Private Detective Mike (私立探偵 濱マイク, Shiritsu tantei Hama Maiku).
Each movie in the trilogy has a different style but, as the films become increasingly darker in tone, Hayashi continues to infuse these works with humor and heart. Hama’s high-schooler sister Akane (Mika Ohmine), his mentor Joe Shishido (Jô Shishido), and his friends from his wilder juvenile days are engaging supporting characters, while jaded, corrupt police officer Lt. Nakayama (Akaji Maro), who has it out for Hama, makes for a foil who is easy to dislike.
To get to Hama’s office, which is located in the second-floor projection booth of a repertory cinema, clients must pay 1,000 yen admission even though they don’t plan to watch whatever movie is scheduled for that time. Once in the office, they find themselves in a space that pays homage to hardboiled noir films. Masatoshi Nagase portrays Maiku Hama — “My real name,” the character repeatedly insists — as a cool but easily hot-tempered cross between Mike Hammer (obviously), gentleman thief Arsène Lupin from the Lupin III anime series, and bounty hunter Spike Spiegel from the Cowboy Bebop anime. Possibly a former juvenile delinquent, if Nakayama is to be believed, Hama seeks to make his business a success and to pay for Akane’s university education.
The soundtracks are spot on, including recurring themes reminiscent of American detective television series along with jazz and rockabilly. These musical choices reflect the homage to private eye media of the past and to the hipness of Hama’s well-dressed — if sometimes low on cash — character.
The Most Terrible Time in My Life, (我が人生最悪の時, Waga jinsei saiaku no toki; 1994) — the first feature in the trilogy — is filmed in black-and-white and, although some of the ambience is of a 1960s setting, I felt that this outing and its two sequels gave off more of a timeless vibe, where retro and the 1990s co-existed. In our introduction to Hama and his world, our hero loses a finger — only temporarily — trying to stop a fight between a Taiwanese waiter and a brusque Japanese customer from escalating in a restaurant. The waiter feels sorry for causing the digit-losing incident and hires Hama to find his brother, who came to Japan two years earlier and then disappeared. Yang Hai-ping and Hou Te-chien give strong performances as the brothers, and Kaho Minami is superb as the wife of the brother being searched for.
Without getting too much into spoiler territory, Hama’s search leads him into the yakuza underworld, where Japanese gangsters are at odds with the rising Black Dog Gang, which consists of Taiwanese and Hong Kong transplants looking to make it big in the Japanese crime scene. The seriousness behind this tension adds a fine element of drama to the proceedings, and Hayashi balances it nicely with well-timed dashes of humor.
The Most Terrible Time in My Life wears its wide-ranging influences on its cinematic sleeve but its verve and panache are so strong that it is easy to overlook and even forgive predictable plot points. Hayashi sets out to entertain while celebrating film noir and his other pop culture loves, and the result is a fun private eye caper that stands alone marvelously but that thankfully was a mere introduction to Hayashi’s vision for Maiku Hama.
The Stairway to the Distant Past (遥かな時代の階段, (Haruka na jidai no kaidan o, 1995) — the second film in the trilogy — boasts some of the elements of the first film — the cinema that houses Hama’s office, his pulling away in grand fashion from the cinema in his newly shined vintage automobile, and so on — with the most noticeable difference right away between this outing and its predecessor being the vibrant color in which it is filmed. Whereas The Most Terrible Time in My Life worked beautifully in black-and-white, the transition to color here makes for a pleasing, somewhat dreamlike experience.
This installment finds Hama coming face to face with the mother who abandoned him and Akane as small children. Performing stripteases in a club under her professional name of Dynamite Sexy Lily (Haruko Wanibuchi), she wishes to make amends with a strongly resistant Maiku and to see Akane once again. Meanwhile, a mysterious character known as The White Man (Eiji Okada) rules the criminal world of the waterfront, an area that he built up in the aftermath of WWII. Both the police and yakuza avoid getting involved with The White Man and his territory but others — including Black Dragon gang members — unwisely have their eyes set on taking it over.
Wanibuchi is magnetic as Lily and, as might be guessed without giving away spoilers, the worlds of Lily, her son Maiku, and The White Man will become intertwined. The palettes may have changed from black-and-white to color, but the dynamic music, offbeat humor and characters, original spin on time-honored noir and crime themes, and other elements that worked so well in The Most Terrible Time in My Life are on marvelous display here. Add to that intriguing family drama, and even romance, and you have a second feature in the trilogy that captivates.
The Trap (罠, Wana, 1996) delves into even darker, more disturbing territory to wind up the trilogy in relatively bizarre fashion. It may be simultaneously the strangest entry in the trilogy and arguably the most accessible to a wider audience. Here Hayashi adds psychological thriller and even horror elements.
Whenever a protagonist from a previous genre film or two winds up with a love interest in a sequel, savvy genre-film viewers know that danger will befall the couple. Here, mute churchgoer Yuriko Yoshida (Yui Natsukawa) is the unlikely target of Hama’s affections — and of a masked serial killer stalking Kanagawa Prefecture. Someone is framing Hama as the killer, and Lt. Nakayama is more than eager to make the arrest.
Nagashe gets to stretch his acting chops — and quite nicely so — in a dual role as both a more matured Hama and as Mikki, the highly troubled surrogate brother of factory worker Mizuki (Tomoko Yamaguchi), who both met during dark childhood days. The pair may have a connection to the murderer, but there are no simple answers in The Trap, in which Hayashi shows a keen sense for crafting creepy, suspenseful set pieces that should please fear-fare fanatics.
The Most Terrible Time in My Life,The Stairway to the Distant Past, and The Trap screen as part of Japan Society’s “So as to Dream: The Eternal Mysteries of Kaizô Hayashi,” the first North American retrospective on the director, which runs October 11-19, 2024 in New York City. For more information, visit https://japansociety.org/film/.
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