The intros are among some of the best pieces of cinema Takashi Miike produced around the late-Nineties and Millennium period. The brutal baseball attack to kick-off "Fudoh: The New Generation" and the film within a montage that introduces us to the "Dead or Alive" Trilogy. Coming a year earlier than the latter, 1998's "Blues Harp" also shows a whole condensed into a rock montage, with clips from throughout the film interspersed with Atsushi Okuno's performance on stage to get the octane levels up. Seeing Miike's lower-budget works as forerunners for ideas in his larger-scale pieces, "Blues Harp" is another, more minor, work that would see similar themes explored later on.

Chuji, born in Okinawa to a Japanese prostitute and African-American soldier, is a barman in a dive bar and music venue in the US navy base town of Yokosuka. A low-level drug dealer, he chances upon Kenji, an ambitious young yakuza in the alley behind the bar, saving Kenji from a beating from his rivals. For this, Kenji is eternally grateful, and chooses to lookout for Chuji as much as he can.

But Kenji is also a man out for himself, and wishes to dethrone is family head, using an affair with his wife to give him to opportunity to seize power. Chuji also sees a bright future ahead: his dabbling with a harmonica, encouraged by the house band, gets heard by a talent scout who wants to offer him a record contract, his bosses' approval pending, as well as his girlfriend announcing she is pregnant.

Things come to a head on one fateful Thursday. Yakuza (and their women's) double-crossings rife, Kenji's plans are soon thwarted and the jealousy of his younger "brother" sees him use Chuji's drug dealing past to blackmail him into being the lacky in Kenji's plans, potentially damaging his future music career, and future full stop.

While a violent film, this is not typical Miike: here the violence is more straight, compared to the more extreme and comic cases seen in his other films. At face-value, this is a fairly standard yakuza tale of backstabbing, teaching us to never trust a yakuza. But the character of Chuji, played by Kiroyuki Ikeuchi, adds a little something extra to the film.

Mixed-race, Chuji represents something of a changing face of Japan. Kenji comments that Chuji is an old-fashioned name, but his lifestyle is anything but. A more Westernised, low-level street dealer, he is a far cry from the organised, "business" face of the yakuza. An early incarnation of the slacker staple now frequent in Japanese cinema, as critiqued my Mark Schilling, he lives in an area populated by graffiti, immigrants, back streets and the homeless, and dreams of a career in blues music. Adopting a homeless, black US soldier as a surrogate father figure, he is a lost soul in an industrialised cityscape emerging from the Nineties decline.

Kenji also offers a twist on yakuza meat and drink, with his affection for Chuji more than simply friendship. Catching an early glimpse of his young rear end, Kenji's hidden homosexuality manifests in his looking out for Chuji and aggressive teeth-brushing following each sexual encounter with his boss' wife, showing a touch more subtlety from Miike.

Music is also important to "Blues Harp" with live performances essentially shown in full alongside storylines, with a mix of rock, blues and hip hop on stage at the bar where Chuji works.

But, as an earlier work in Miike's post-V-cinema career, this is a film not without its flaws. The less established cast, incorporating musicians, naturally, doesn't always mean particularly classic acting. Chuji can come across more funny than funky in his live performances, Ikeuchi perhaps overdoing his blues harp miming a little.

But typical of this era, it also sees Miike experimenting throughout, with ideas and themes that would be reprised later in his career in bigger-scale projects. As such, while not a particularly standout work, this is in some ways Miike at his best, and more low-key works such as "Blues Harp" would have been welcomed in a career that has often gone to extremes.

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Chuuji is half black, has a homeless father and he works in a bar. He has connections deep into the yakuza which he cares little about. He saves a girl with whom he get together with.

Ikeuchi Hiroyuki is very good as Chuuji, the protagonist that you care about in this movie. The story is a sad one with little sentimentality and told with joy so we don't get turned off it.

Miike is a promising filmmaker, but maybe he should spend some more time on each movie instead of spewing 'em out. 'Chuugoku no Chounin' suffers a little from this. Such is the case also with this movie. Its still recommended for the lead act.

Takashi Miike´s 1998 film BLUES HARP is not as outrageous as FUDOH or DEAD OR ALIVE and not as disturbing and shocking as AUDITION or VISITOR Q. It isn´t a gory bloodbath like ICHI THE KILLER. It is a Yakuza film very much along the lines of CHINESE MAFIA SEASON, RAINY DOG and LEY LINES.

(SPOILERS!) The two main protagonists are Chuji, a half-Black and Kenji, an upstart Yakuza. Chuji works at a club and one night saves Kenji´s life when he is being chased by rivaling gangsters. The two become friends. But there is trouble on the horizon. Kenji conspires to replace his boss with the help the boss´s mistress. And Kenji´s bodyguard becomes murderously jealous of Kenji´s love for Chuji (the film is anything but subtle with the homoerotic overtones). I won´t tell anything more but the ending is both beautiful and tragic. (END SPOILERS)

BLUES HARP is a really great film. I was once again amazed how many of my favorite films are from Miike-san. BLUES HARP has now joined them. The actors are great, the cinematography is gorgeous (once again by HANA BI cinematographer and longtime Miike collaborator Hideo Yamamoto) and most importantly what happens on-screen feels REAL. You get the feeling that real people lead these kinds of life all the time and (in variations) all over the world. And even though we are dealing with criminals here Miike portrays them with what seems like genuine affection, even love while never, NEVER, glorifying the Yakuza lifestyle. One gets the feeling he really knows what he is making films about and considering his past that is most probably true. Whatever Miike does in the future I´ll be there and every film lover should keep an eye on this man.