AFS Program: The Maiku Hama Trilogy

Note: Austin Film Society is presenting the Maiku Hama Trilogy throughout May. Below is our review for the first film–we will review the next two films in our second installment.

Pulp fiction godfather Mickey Spillane debuted his hard-nosed private eye character Mike Hammer in the 1947 novel I, The Jury. Hammer swiftly made it to the big screen, most memorably embodied by Ralph Meeker as an atomic age bruiser in 1954’s Kiss Me Deadly.

In the mid-1990s, Japanese filmmaker Kaizo Hayashi took a crack at the Hammer character in a trilogy of offbeat crime capers. Hepburnized as Maiku Hama, he’s played by Masatoshi Nagase, known at the time for his role in Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train (1989). Nagase’s Hama is a bit of a dork and much less proactively violent than Kiss Me Deadly’s all-American chauvinist bully, but he collects a comparable amount of serious injury during the proceedings. 

Review: The Most Terrible Time In My Life

“No time to see a movie…poor guy must be in trouble.”

This aside, from the ticket seller at the movie house that doubles as Maiku Hama’s detective office, sets the tragicomic tone of this rollicking noir caper. It’s an old school film palace with a sprawling CinemaScope logo, showing The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which flips to the film’s title in one of its many clever visual gags. Shot in luminous black and white, this is a movie made by and for people who love the movies.

Set in the port city of Yokohama, Terrible features a dizzying plot triggered by an everyday lunch at a fried rice joint. Maiku and his pals make conversation with Yang, an earnest Taiwanese immigrant waiting tables. Still learning Japanese, he gets roughed up by an unsympathetic yakuza, leading to a brawl with a shocking punchline.

This strange occurrence leads to Yang hiring Hama to search for Yang’s missing older brother. From there, the detective stumbles into the midst of a triple-front gang war between mainland Chinese, Taiwan separatists, and Japanese yakuza. Complicating matters further, the hard-nosed cops cracking down on “foreigner crime” don’t trust Hama on account of his past in juvenile detention. Of course, having done time in the school of hard knocks comes in handy when dealing with lethal crime syndicates.

Like the vintage noir greats, Terrible keeps its foot on the gas in terms of action and atmosphere, with the complex plot pleasantly riding shotgun. The film wears its influences like an old leather jacket, notably in a cameo by frequent Seijun Suzuki leading man Joe Shishido. Suzuki’s playful and irreverent style, showcased in his cult classic Branded To Kill (1967), is an obvious touchstone, but Hayashi also steeps his atmosphere in the dark, cynical tones of American post-war crime flicks.

Like the best film noir, Terrible explores potent themes of identity. The second act stretches into a hangout vibe as Maiku and Yang drink together and bond over their shared sense of familial responsibilities–Hama takes care of his kid sister, and as orphans all they have is each other.  Later, a character intones, “I’ve decided to forget the past. People should look to the future.” In typical noir fashion, the past comes back around in a bitterly ironic twist.

Hayashi’s take on well-worn private eye tropes is tonally precise and wildly entertaining without getting caught up in post-modern affectation. His storytelling is visually sophisticated and playful, at one point employing a funhouse mirror effect to convey bad guys getting punched out. Layering imagery in its liquid prowling camera, inky shadows and foggy alleys, Terrible exudes effortless cool with splashes of modern ultraviolence, ending in a downbeat cliffhanger and a switch to eye-popping color for a preview of the sequels.

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