The Most Terrible Time in My Life

On the seedy side of Yokohama, Japan, Maiku "Mike" Hama (Masatoshi Nagase)--"that's my real name"--runs a detective agency out of a rundown movie theater. After coming to the aid of Hai Ting (Yang Haitin), a Chinese waiter in a mahjong parlor who's being harassed by yakuza thugs, Mike agrees to help locate the waiter's lost brother, a yakuza hitman...which draws the gumshoe deep into a gang war that threatens to shift yakuza politics all over the East, with Taiwan and Hong Kong gangs in Japan (the self-proclaimed "New Japs") killing each other like crazy (severed fingers--trademark yakuza punishment--abound). Made in 1993, but only arriving in the U.S. in 2000, The Most Terrible Time in My Life, shot in glorious black-and-white with hardboiled narration provided by our laconic hero, is a timeless comedy punk noir with a bit of a sly agenda in its send-up of Japan's notorious xenophobia. Recommended. (M. Johanson)