Launched to stardom by Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train (1989), 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 (1993), 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, presented here from its new 4K restoration.

THE MOST TERRIBLE TIME OF MY LIFE (1993)

The trilogy kicks things off in akushon black-and-white with The Most Terrible Time in My Life, set among the 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.