The Maiku Hama Trilogy

Launched to stardom by Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train, enigmatic actor Masatoshi Nagase thrives as the hardboiled detective wannabe Maiku Hama in Kaizo Hayashi’s trilogy of the same name, encompassing The Most Terrible Time in My Life (1994), The Stairway to the Distant Past (1995) and The Trap (1996). Stomping through the bustling-and-hustling port city of Yokohama, Hama operates out of a run-down movie theatre and his office sees every kind of customer: from rich ladies looking for runaway pups to serial murderers who look suspiciously like himself… Equal part American hardboiled detective pastiche, Seijun Suzuki-style Nikkatsu akushon send-up, and Masatoshi Nagase’s own new school comedic charmer, the Maiku Hama Trilogy is a cult phenomena of 90s Japanese cinema, that would go on to inspire many – and spawn its own anthology NTV television series The Private Detective Mike by 2002.

The trilogy kicks things off in akushon black-and-white with The Most Terrible Time in My Life, set among immigrant communities of a multi-cultural Yokohama. When Maiku accidentally saves a Taiwanese immigrant named Yang during a mahjong parlour brawl, he becomes embroiled in a tale of two brothers at the heart of an underground pan-Asian mafia on the brink of war.  

In The Stairway to the Distant Past, now in vibrant color, Maiku Hama returns in a dashing convertible that is promptly repo’d. Taking on odd jobs, from lost dogs to men looking for their own selves, Hama’s search leads him to a past he thought he’d left him behind as the port city’s most legendary stripper returns and our detective struggles with being a chip off the old block. 

Closing out the trilogy is The Trap in which Nagase stars in a memorable double role. When a string of young women in floral dresses are found serenely posed and afflicted with rigor mortis, alarms are sounded throughout Yokohama about the possibility of a serial killer on the loose. But when all evidence points to Hama, he has to fight against the clock and former allies, putting his trust in a rookie cop and his trusted sidekick Hoshino. Will Hama escape the trap?