Harukana jidai no kaidan o
Japan,
1994, 101 min
Shown in 1995
CREDITS
- dir
-
Kaizô Hayashi
- prod
-
Shunsuke Koga, Kazutoshi Wadakura, Kaizô Hayashi
- scr
-
Daisuke Tengan, Kaizô Hayashi
- cam
-
Yuichi Nagata
- editor
-
Nobuko Tomita
- cast
-
Masatoshi Nagase, Haruko Wanibuchi, Eiki Okada, Mika Ohmine
- source
-
For Life Records, Inc.
- premiere
-
International Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Kaizô Hayashi in person.
OTHER
Mike Hama, Yokohama’s worst-dressed private detective, is back in this terrific sequel to The Most Terrible Time in My Life (SFIFF 1994). A beautiful stripper named Lilly appears in town and stirs up a world of trouble for Mike (Masatoshi Nagase). Lilly, it turns out, is Mike’s mother, who abandoned him and his little sister when they were children, leaving them to fend for themselves. Mike is still bitter about her desertion and demands she stay away from his sister. Meanwhile, a rogue gang calling themselves the New Japs are trying to muscle in on Yokohama’s lucrative riverfront area, controlled with brutal efficiency since WWII by the legendary White Man (Eiji Okada, the equally legendary star of Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour.) These two stories converge on the river that flows through the center of the city, as Mike stumbles into a wild swirl of complications, complete with high-speed boat chases, gang wars, dirty cops and even dirtier politicians. In the process, he confronts terrible secrets from his own past, which mirror Yokohama’s own dark secrets. Director Kaizo Hayashi takes us on an enthralling, tragicomic time-trip, a visually spectacular (color! CinemaScope!) meditation about time and family that is pure delight.
—Tod Booth
FACTOID #73
James Wong Howe was the first cinematographer to receive a tribute at the Festival, October 19, 1974. The legendary lenser photographed such classics as The Thin Man, Pursued, Sweet Smell of Success and Hud.
