Wana

This is the third Mike Hama film and I am surprised that I watched this one--I was a bit disappointed by the other two. But, somehow I forgot to delete these one from my Netflix queue, so I decided why not see the final film in this strange series.

This one starts off a lot less comically than the previous films. Instead of Mike's life being a total mess, he's in love and quite happy. He doesn't mind that his girlfriend is a mute--she's otherwise very sweet. Though, as his friends point out, this nice Christian lady is too good for Mike and it cannot last.

At the same times, there have been a series of really weird murders in town. All feature the same m.o.--ladies with similar make-up and the same perfume are found dead--apparently injected with some poison. Some weirdo in a trench coat and mask is apparently being these killings--for, apparently, some brain damaged guy who is semi-comatose. Sounds weird, eh? Well, it certainly is. And it only got weirder after that--not at all a comedy and really not exactly a detective film--more like a horror film with surreal elements. I thought it was all pretty nasty and difficult to like. Well, that's what I get for watching all three Hama films.

Part three of the Mike Hama Private Investigator trilogy is completely different to what we've enjoyed before. While there are still laugh out loud comedy moments this is more like the film Audition by Takashi Miike. It is very, very disturbing viewing and will give you nightmares if you dare to watch it alone!

The very first minutes of this film seemed to pour on style like syrup on a stack of super-realistic Phillip Marlowe-era pancakes, and I was ready for a thrill. We start off back in the old Yokohama movie house by the wacky ticket-taker's booth and her dwarfish sidekick and then move upstairs to Maiku Hama's (Mike Hammer's) projection-booth private eye's office. And the opening's a dark, chilling one - an immediate confrontation with an eerie, masked character.

Maiku has a new girl friend in this sequel - a mute - with whom he frequently converses over the phone - she tapping responses on the mouthpiece in some private code they've agreed on, while he simply speaks, as she is not deaf. Language played a role in the first film of the Maiku Hama trilogy (The Most Terrible Time in My Life) - there it was use of "Kanji" characters to communicate across the Chinese-Japanese language gulf. Here. the tap-code saves Maiku's life at the end, in a fight to the death.

I wished throughout I might have seen it in a wide-screen theater, in place of my computer screen. It's viewed a bit in comic-book style - albeit a super-stylish one. And somewhat as with James Bond flicks, we're to sit back and enjoy - not delve too deep into logic of the plot or the actions. As in The Most Terrible Time, characters sometimes show incredible hesitation at the most urgent moments - something I find frankly disruptive.

The nemesis duo from the Yokohama police department is again on Maiku's tail, but this time, the younger one sides with Maiku - even becomes so fed up with with his superior's cynicism he decides to quit the force and become a detective himself.

But despite all the style and well-crafted cinematography, the film both thrilled me and let me down. However good so much of it was, Hayashi is very sparing in his character development. It could have been so much more fun with more involvement from the colorful characters. And why is it that the three pretty victims at the beginning of the flick all look so strikingly different, while throughout the remainder of the film villainess and heroine are virtually indistinguishable in appearance? The film has a strong start - seems to promise so much - but, somewhere near mid-point (after the villain plants Maiku's fingerprints at the scene of a killing), to my taste, the script becomes too problematic - much interesting detail dies unused - the pace falters and I became impatient. Hayashi compensates us with imaginative humor and a funny cinema-verite trick at the end - even a sequence with Maiku cutting a suave figure in blond wig and drag - but the result is less than perfect. I gave it less than a 10... I wrangled between 8 and 9. But the films I evaluated it against were memorable - Maltese Falcon/Curse of the Jade Scorpion stuff - not the run of the mill, soon-forgotten stuff we see advertised around us all the time.

I feel guilty criticizing as I have, since I had a great time watching it! By the way, I was only able to obtain this DVD by way of Amazon Japan.

Amongst all of the films within the Maiku Hama trilogy, The Trap proves to be the most unusual and dense among the three. Just when Hama looks like he's pulled his life together, a case as strange and dark as this adds a new twist to the series.

Unlike the other two movies, Hama isn't portrayed as the off-kilter private eye with a temper problem, but he is more or less the cool and savvy detective that is being framed for a crime he did not commit. While the typical frame-up plot line is followed rather closely, the eeriness of some of the supporting characters is what makes this film work on many more levels than its predecessors. The Trap is a strong way to finish the series, leaving a rather open-ended finish while still mixing in some of the trademark humor that dotted the series. Hopefully, we'll get to see the movies in a three-disk set. That would certainly make a nice gift for anyone that appreciates a good detective film.