Yasuo Higuchi -- Kou no Tehma（宏のテーマ）

 

Along with the gritty crime dramas that were getting produced and released in Hollywood in the early 1970s such as "The French Connection", Japan was probably no slouch in that area either. There was one such movie called "Akai Tori Nigeta?"（赤い鳥逃げた?...Did the Red Bird Escape?）from 1973 which starred Yoshio Harada（原田芳雄）as Kou Bando（坂東宏）and Kaori Momoi（桃井かおり）and it's been described at one website as being "...an avant-garde work that differed vastly from Japan’s typical crime dramas". From what I've read of it, it struck me as being a modern film noir.

Why I even mention this movie is that by chance, I managed to come across one of the works used for the soundtrack for "Akai Tori Nigeta?" by Yasuo Higuchi（樋口康雄）. Titled "Kou no Tehma" (Kou's Theme), it's a laid back jam going for the jazz, funk, rock and urban at the same time. That electric guitar really gets into the funk like a really hungry mosquito. Just from listening to the song, I am probably able to figure out Kou's personality as this cool if reckless city cat strutting down the streets and woe betide anyone who has the bad luck to accidentally walk into him. Perhaps the song might be a tad early to be given the Label of City Pop but considering how it sounds and the instrumentation and arrangement involved, I felt that it still rather earns it. 

One small thing and that is the title of the movie itself. When I first read it, I couldn't help but be reminded of that one Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）song that had been made back in the mid-1980s.