Hidden in history is the 1972 Japanese car cinema classic called “Hairpin Circus“. If modern day auteur Nicolas Winding Refn (director of “Drive“) was a Japanese filmmaker 50+ years ago, this is the moody movie he would have made. Director Kiyoshi Nishimura put nighttime imagery of Tokyo on screen without too much dialogue to distract from the beauty of 1970’s sports cars prowling the Shuto Expressway.
Cinematography is a cross between “Taxi Driver” with it’s high-contrast, saturated colours and “Grand Prix” with its vivid life like race sequences. It’s the story of a retired race car driver Shimao, who now works as a driving instructor in Tokyo. But a chance meeting with former student Miki outside a rest stop on the Shuto Expressway changes the course of his life.
Shimao is trying hard to outrun the ghosts of his part. He’s given up racing, gotten married and started a family. But each night he waits at the Shuto coffee shops for… something to happen. He coldly greets Miki, a terrible former student whom he tried to steer in the right direction. Miki is a gorgeous young woman driving a Toyota 2000GT who gets her kicks street racing with her gang of hooligans in an Alfa Romeo Spring GT and a Toyota Celica GT.
Miki and her crew called the Hairpin Circus play a deadly game each night. They speed on the expressway, sometimes three abreast, swerving and preventing traffic from passing. As impatient drivers approach from behind, the bold ones try to break through. But Miki and her gang give chase, force the driver off the highway and play a game of chicken in the port lands. Every time they wreck one of these ‘tourists’ the gang paints another chrysanthemum on the door of their car, signifying vanquished opponents.
The Japanese street gang took their name from the WWI flying aces of Germany called Richthofen’s Flying Circus. These pilots were the best of the best, refused to camouflage their aircraft, instead painting them outrageous colours. Always looking for a ‘dogfight’ the elite squadron struck fear in the hearts of enemy pilots, painting ‘kills’ on the sides of their planes. This is how Miki and her crew see themselves; driving aces using their skills on the highway instead of the battlefield.
Shimao is a tortured man. At home with his family, he is cold and distant. He opens the window for fresh air, and the sounds of race cars penetrate his ears, as if they were right outside. Shimao left the world of racing after the death of his friend and rival during a vicious on-track battle at Macau Grand Prix. He took victory, and also his rival’s life. Flashbacks of racing scenes throughout the film are highly realistic in appearance (actually filmed during the 1971 Macau Grand Prix) showing Shimao giving no quarter on the tight street-circuit.
Shimao becomes obsessed with Miki, and still thinks he can ‘save’ her. After all, she’s just a misguided young woman. And as his student, he has an obligation to teach her the responsibilities of driving. Yet he is mesmerized, thrilled to be racing again, even if it isn’t on the track. He joins the crew as they smoke dope and visit Tokyo jazz clubs. The night-time scenes create a dream-like state, which juxtaposes against the bright, fast paced flashbacks of Shimao’s past life.
What makes “Hairpin Circus” so different to other car movies are the long sections of the film just documenting driving on the Shuto Expressway. The director mounted tripods and cameras to the hood of cars aimlessly snaking along the Bayshore Route. Dialogue is almost non-existent which is good because the audience won’t want to take its eyes off the road to read the subtitles.
“Do you have something in your life that you live for?” Miki asks Shimao, who we learn was her driving instructor when she first got her license. It’s a question that he can’t answer until the very end of the narrative, when the death of an innocent as a result of her street racing antics jolts him awake from sleepwalking through his own life.
Putting aside his fear of racing skills, he answers the call to end the reckless pursuits of her gang by using their love of speed against them. He buys a tricked out Mazda RX-3 and turns the hunters into the hunted. Prepare for a brutal ending.
Wow, Chris, where do you find all these interesting movies?
This one looks really good.