Yokohama BJ Blues


The master shot is a lost art.  Back in the ‘50s, when movies were competing with the rise of television, audiences were treated to vast landscapes and artfully composed scenes utilizing every inch of the widescreen frame…while most directors today don’t have the patience to sit on one shot for more than three seconds.  So watching Yokohama BJ Blues (1981), a noir-styled throwback made up almost exclusively of long takes, long lenses and lengthy exchanges of hardboiled dialogue, is like slowing down your cinematic pulse to a rhythm from another era.

BJ himself (Yusaku Matsuda) is a part-time blues singer who moonlights as a private investigator to pay the bills. But when his best friend is murdered, the case becomes a personal vendetta to find the murderer, rekindle an old flame and rescue a client’s son who’s fallen in with the wrong crowd.  In true noir fashion, the good guys and bad guys aren’t so clear cut and BJ must play all the angles to clear his name and uncover the truth.

Best known for his role in The Game Trilogy, Matsuda makes for an interesting private dick.  Shaggy, disheveled but with a modern aura of cool that makes him irresistible to the ladies and the men, the actor’s low-key performance is the perfect balance for director Eichi Kudo’s studied visual approach. Rather than lean on the noir cliches – dark alleys and neon-soaked streets – Yokohama BJ Blues is shot with a naturalistic style that rarely calls attention to itself. But the scenes themselves are all five- or ten-minute affairs, strung together with a deceptively impressive result.

The narrative itself is a mess of conflicting motivations, red herrings and a muted finale. But noir never really excels at making sense.  It’s more about a sense of mood…and that mood here is a nihilistically grim one. Kudo’s film is best appreciated as a house built by master craftsmen; it’s simplicity might not be everyone but you’re can’t deny the skill it took to make it.

Making its world-premiere on Blu-ray, Radiance’s 300-copy limited edition shows a bit more wear than their recent releases.  There’s a good amount of speckling throughout, but nothing that ever rises to distraction.   Extras include new interviews with star Mari Hemmi and screenwriter Shoichi Maruyama, plus a tour of the locations, liner notes and reversible cover sleeve.

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