From
Black Rain
Duration
2:53 min
Written by
Hans Zimmer, Hans Zimmer

Notes on this track

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Divorced, behind in his payments, under suspicion for graft, and working the streets of New York City („one big gray area“, as he describes it), the cop now has the Japanese mafia – the yakuza – to contend with. Lunching with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia) after a hearing with internal affairs, Nick (Michael Douglas) witnesses a brutal murder by Sato (Yûsaku Matsuda). The wild-eyed maniac is caught, but the Japanese want to deal with him themselves – and Nick and Charlie are tasked with transport and chaperone duties.", "notes_body": "Arriving in Osaka, the New York cops are outwitted and robbed of their catch, and suddenly they are embroiled in a wide-scale counterfeiting operation and bloody mob war in a very foreign country. There is a seismic clash of cultures and personalities, with local English-speaking cop Masahiro (Ken Takakura) assigned to inform (and babysit) his New York counterparts, especially the pugnacious Conklin. Sharp knives, steel mills, and motorcycle chases hurtle Nick and Masa into an unlikely friendship, and everyone who survives emerges a little wiser – Masa taking a cue from Nick’s balls-to-the-wall audacity, and Nick accepting lessons in humility and honor.\n\n*Black Rain* saw director Ridley Scott, who contributed *Alien* and *Blade Runner* to the canon of great cinema and went on an impressive genre-crawl during the 1980s, tackling yet another genre – this time the gritty cop thriller. The 1989 film is marked by its abundance: of great actors (American and Japanese), of high-stake chases, of moody visual atmosphere, of ramped-up culture shock, and of pure energy. The film begins with a shot of a free-roaming motorcycle, and it streaks through the streets of New York City to the alleyways of Osaka, hardly ever letting up on the gas.\n\nFueling the film is a badass Michael Douglas, a cynical cop who lets New York City ethics get into his lungs. As Nick, Douglas unloads a barrage of classic New York cop comebacks and zingers, defies other motorcyclists to race, holds his own with a handgun, and does his best to shake up the Japanese police system. Andy Garcia provides a gregarious social softener as Nick’s partner and buddy, translating his friend’s more colorful American colloquialisms, playing peacemaker in Japan, and even grandstanding at karaoke night.\n\nKen Takakura gives the strongest and most subtle performance as Masa, the principled Japanese cop who trades some Eastern wisdom for a little of Nick’s hellbent tenacity. Kate Capshaw has a small role as an extremely knowledgeable Chicagoan in the belly of Osaka. Yûsaku Matsuda, who who knew he had bladder cancer before accepting the part of Sato (though Ridley Scott did not), turned in his swan song performance as the uninhibitedly intense villain. Fully aware that such a physical role would only make his cancer worse, Matsuda – whose career in film and television began in the early 70s – considered it a worthy trade. He felt that being in the film would give him immortality. He died within weeks of the film’s release.\n\nIt was Michael Douglas who was first attracted to Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis’ *Black Rain* screenplay. Douglas was hot off the success of Oliver Stone’s *Wall Street*, and wanted to play corruption in another key. He also had an eye on current events, and was interested in making something topical. „I felt there was something between us and Japan that was unresolved“, he said, „that was a mixture of hostility and admiration on both sides – really confused. It involves Japan’s cultural imitation of the United States, all of which is colored by lingering memories of World War II. …I thought that this particular picture, as a cop-action picture, could explore some of the differences in customs and behavior – explore some of the hostilities that our two cultures and societies have for each other.“\n\nRidley Scott was pursued to direct the film (rather than the other way around), and it presented a further step, after his thriller *Someone to Watch Over Me*, away from the big sci-fi and fantasy movies for which he was known. Scott, too, was fascinated by the tension between Japan and the U.S. „The way in is the conflict between police methods“, he explained. „Michael – as Conklin – is a New York homicide detective with a certain disgruntlement, a certain dissatisfaction with the system and a certain renegade quality. It’s even suggested that he’s on the take in a minor way. Ken [Takakura], on the other hand, is a thorough, by-the-book, hardline bureaucrat who is part of what seems to be this wonderful machine in Japan.“\n\n„Michael, I think“, he continued, „reestablishes some lost values in himself – traditional values, which somewhere along the line have been lost in the West but which I think still exist in Japan, such as a sense of honor and a sense of family – through his experience with this Japanese character. And Ken – who plays a kind of Japanese Everyman, the salaried man, the bourgeois, what we think of as an automaton – loses his rigidity and opens up through his contact with Michael and Andy Garcia. For Ken Takakura – both as a character and as an actor – to stand up and sing is an incredibly alien and even painful thing.“\n\nProduction on *Black Rain* was not without its problems, mirroring (and perhaps fueling) the hot culture clash in the story. Scott choose to shoot in Osaka because of its moody, industrial look (not far afield from his vision of a futuristic Los Angeles in *Blade Runner*) „Japan is difficult visually“, he said, „awkward visually.“ He found Kyoto and Tokyo too „squeaky-clean“, and settled on Osaka – Japan’s third largest city – for its noir-ish vibe. Michael Douglas chose not to visit the country until casting sessions for the Japanese actors. „I wanted to see Japan with fresh eyes“, he said, „as the character does.“\n\nThe casting sessions certainly gave Douglas an insight into Conklin’s cultural confusion. Scott and company held auditions for all the Japanese roles, in keeping with standard Hollywood procedure. „In Japan, though“, said associate producer Alan Poul, „actors do not audition. The idea of putting yourself in a position that’s potentially humiliating is very disagreeable – and very alien to the Japanese experience. They spend their lives making each other’s lives easy – often that’s a priority over honesty, over frugality. …But here, we had within the space a few days many of the nation’s top actors coming in and out of the Imperial Hotel, which is the most prominently situated hotel in Tokyo.“\n\nFor actors like Takakura, a matinee idol considered the „Clint Eastwood of Japan“, it was the first of many humbling (or irritating) differences between two very different ways of doing things. „Each actor would arrive with his manager“, said Scott, „the manager being fairly angry at having to be there at all. But because we were so well promoted, they were torn between not coming at all and coming to see what was going on.“\n\nShooting lasted four months, and ultimately only six weeks of that was done in Japan. There simply wasn’t the structural support or protocol of shooting on location at the time, with Japan’s film industry still using mostly sets. Police were inexperienced with crowd control for filmed street scenes, and locals exhibited an image-consciousness that proved a road-block. „People thought that having their store or their house used as a place frequently by yakuza would reflect badly on them“, said Poul. „And when we wanted to play a row of shops in a fish market as someone’s apartment, we were told, ‚But people don’t really live here.‘“ And so, many of the Osaka scenes were shot in California: the nightclub set was constructed on the Paramount lot; Sugai’s grand house was actually in Los Feliz; the steel mill sequence began in Japan but, because it was illegal to use gunfire while the mill was in operation, was finished in Fontana; and Napa Valley stood in for Japanese farmland for the climactic shootout and motorcycle chase.\n\n„I’ve done a lot of physically demanding films“, Takakura told the *Los Angeles Times*, promoting the film. „I’ve been dragged to the South Pole and to the North Pole. I’ve had to climb glaciers and stand naked in sub-zero weather in Hokkaido, and I would say that making this film was just a tough, maybe even tougher, than any of them.“\n\n*Black Rain* was released in the U.S. on September 22, 1989, and grossed nearly $10 million in its opening weekend. It went on to make more than $134 million worldwide, and was nominated by the Academy for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing. Critics praised the film’s aesthetics, and many credited it for rising above the tropes of its genre. „*Black Rain* is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids“, wrote Rita Kempley for *The Washington Post*. „What raises the film above the herd“, Peter Travers wrote in *Rolling Stone*, „is the way Scott lets the traditions of a foreign land work changes on Conklin. …By refusing to beat its Eastern and Western protagonists into comic-book pulp, the movie pays them, and the audience, a rare compliment.“\n\n#### *Black Rain* Man\n\nHans Zimmer had just enjoyed his grand coming-out party as composer for the Oscar-sweeper *Rain Man*, and in short time his career and influence in film music went from simmering to ablaze. „I sat there watching… *Rain Man*“, said Ridley Scott, „and I became conscious of the score. It kind of felt bigger than it ought to be, and yet it worked. It was playing an internal world, yet it was a big track. I waited until the end and said, ‚Who’s that? Oh, Hans Zimmer. Who the hell’s that? I’ll call him up.’ I was impressed by the music, you know. As simple as that.“\n\nIt was an easy choice for the young Zimmer to hitch onto the acclaimed director’s wagon, and it would be the first of six films they worked on together. „We just started chatting“, said Zimmer. „I said to him, ‚So how do I not get fired off a Ridley Scott film?‘ And he said, ‚Well, don’t write me a symphony. Write something that’s appropriate for the movie.’ We started working right away, and we started coming up with some fairly unconventional ideas.“\n\n„Unconventional“ is a word Zimmer has often used for his work – not always to the liking of „conventional“ ears – but there is inarguably something brash and fresh about his music for this violent world of culture combustion in Osaka. „I was aware that not all scores had to be done orchestrally“, said the composer, „and that there was an interesting way to present a foreign culture to America, or to Europe, etc., by using some of the instruments from that culture. It’s so easy to go and steal all the clichés from a culture, and sort of string them together and go, ‚Hey, here it is!‘ as opposed just saying, ‚Okay, I’m just writing from my point of view, but I’m going to interpret it by musicians from that culture.‘“\n\n„There’s a very strong sense of percussion in Japanese culture, and because Ridley shot the film in very sort of modern way, and it was Osaka where he shot a lot of stuff, it’s very industrial. For all the percussive elements, I used synthesizers and electronics. Because I wanted it to be really hard. I wanted each percussion hit to be like a gunshot.“\n\nThe score was orchestrated and conducted by Shirley Walker, who had just conducted Danny Elfman’s *Batman*. It was Walker’s first project with Zimmer, and she conducted many of his early scores up through 1992’s *Toys*. They met at the time of Zimmer’s transition to L.A. from London, as they shared the same agent. „I had a lunch meeting with him and his partner and we all hit it off“, Walker recalled, „and we had a glorious span of projects there for quite a few years. Hans actually got me another feature, *Chicago Joe and the Showgirl* [1990], which again is a shared credit. It’s nothing he wrote a note of, but his contractual obligation was such that he kept his name on it.“ Walker’s own contribution to the *Black Rain* soundtrack is the lovely „Airplane Muzak“ source cue.\n\nThe score is a significant marker on the Zimmer timeline, and is a showcase of an emerging composer finding his voice and barreling down with a young man’s intensity. It is both a stylistic and thematic outgrowth of his score to *Rain Man* (with it’s „bigger“, pop-influenced synth approach), and a foundational work full of hints and patterns of trademarks he would use throughout his burgeoning career – even up to his most recent work. It’s also just a damn fun listen.\n\n#### Disc One\n\n**1. Sato Pt. 1 / One-Way Glass** \nThe first score cue in the film enters under the tense sequence that introduces Sato and the yakuza, and the music immediately throws us into a dark and oriental environment with colors of an ichigenkin (Japanese zither) and shakuhachi punctuating a brooding synthesizer intro. In the film the cue clashes with the Bobby Darin song „Beyond the Sea“ playing inside the deli, then replaces it. Sato isn’t given his own musical theme in *Black Rain*, per se (although the dark clouds of Osaka do prompt a recuring motif, heard first in this cue at 3:45). His menace is usually accompanied by these kinds of sinister native sounds, and his action by the percussive chaos that follows as Nick and Charlie chase Sato through the streets of New York and into a meat locker. A bedlam of Zimmer’s synth „gunshots“ is laced with sakuhachi, electric guitar, and other effects as Sato fights between swinging meat like a caged animal, before finally being overtaken. „One-Way-Glass“ crops up at the end of the following scene, as Sato makes threats to an invisible Conklin through the interrogation room mirror. Zimmer scores the scene with an ominous, throbbing synth effect, the trickling sound of a rainstick, and shakuhachi.\n\n**2. Osaka / Phony Cops** \nThe score truly announces itself during the dramatic flyover of Osaka, cast by Scott in a glow of orange and pink with smokestacks choking out billows of industrial exhaust. The Osaka theme opens with thundering beats, and is performed on a Japanese fue. Its oriental intervals thrust us into the foreign land, acknowledging the culture clash about to hit the fan – and its dark, foreboding tone prophesies violence. Nick and Charlie hand Sato over to Japanese authorities who enter the back of the plane, scored by pulsing clatter, bass, and fat synth surges.\n\n**3. You Gonna Be Nice? / Sato Pt. 2** \nThe accelerated heartbeat from the previous cue continues, unused in the film. After Nick and Charlie are assigned their (less-than thrilled) local guide, the music blasts them like a gunshot out onto the night streets of Osaka, sirens blaring. Accompanying them into the film’s central central nightclub, the score reflects the neon blue and elegant women populating the place. As Nick walks past a Japanese woman in a black sequin dress (Miyuki Ono), Zimmer introduces a motif that uses the first notes of the Dies Irae, a motif that is later developed into a full theme for Sugai and the crime world this woman represents – giving melodic shape to much of the score’s action. „Sato Pt. 2“ plays it cool as Nick lights up a cigarette and looks around the nightclub, watching the sequined woman being escorted out. Nick’s theme makes its first appearance here, strummed with bravado. While Nick pumps the helpfully omniscient Joyce for information about Sato and the yakuza, a measured statement of the Sugai theme plays over an exhaling synth pattern. Zimmer slowly begins to play with and develop one of the score’s catchiest ideas. „Who knows about this?“ Nick asks about the turf war he’s stumbled into, as the Osaka theme bubbles ominously in the low register. „Counting you and me?“ replies Joyce, „11 million“.\n\n**4. Sato Watching / Circling Motorbikes** \nFrom a window overlooking the street outside the nightclub, Sato eyes Nick and Charlie. Zimmer scores the villain’s menacing smile with a bending synth gesture. Percussion pounds as they become encircled by local bullies on motorcycles, the Osaka theme melodically connecting the explosive beats. Charlie expresses his reluctance to wade any further into this plot. „I can’t go back without him, Charlie“, Nick says – a lone ichigenkin sighing a fragment of Nick’s theme over a low bass line.\n\n**Sugai’s Photo / Sato Pt. 3** \nBack in the police office, Nick and Charlie are shown a photo of yakuza boss Sugai and filled in on the mob presence in Osaka. Zimmer underlines the threat with throbbing synth effects and a subtle statement of the Osaka theme. Charlie notices a team of armored police gathering outside the office, and Masa reluctantly tells them there is going to be a raid on Sato’s (supposed) last hideout. „Sato Pt. 3“ rumbles into active duty as the cops jump aboard the raid vehicle. The Osaka theme plays, full of testosterone, as the cops drive through the streets and then run through a casino. Rhythm fades to ambience inside the apartment, as Nick recognizes one of the phony cops from the airplane.\n\n**6. Sato Pt. 4** \nWaves of the chords from the nightclub scene slowly break while the cops search the hideout, and Zimmer imitates the atmospheric whirling of the (very Ridley Scott) fan in the wall. Droning synth and a shakuhachi accent the sight of Sato, who watches Nick and Charlie leaving from his motorcycle.\n\n**7. Charlie Losed His Head** \nAfter a couple of unscored scenes and the use of source songs (including a memorable karaoke rendition of „What’d I Say“), the film takes a dark turn when, walking home from the nightclub, Charlie does his characteristic torero move on a motorcyclist and is robbed of his jacket (and passport). Dissonance and sporadic drumming score Nick’s fear as he chases Charlie through a large indoor mall. A small Zimmer trademark appears here, one he has used in many dramatic scenes throughout his career: a series of half notes move stepwise, each punctuated by a blast of rapid sixteenth notes on the third beat. The score accelerates into mayhem, Nick watching helplessly through a gate as Charlie is surrounded by Sato and his thugs. A stream of primal, gunshot percussion underscores Sato, riding like a jouster towards Charlie and beheading him. The cue cuts to Nick on a bridge, dejected, with a long, high fue note. Gentle drops of the Sugai motif play as Joyce comes to comfort Nick. Nick drowns his sorrows and bemoans the tragedy („He was 28 years old“), underscored by a humbled rendition of Nick’s theme. Masa comes to visit the next morning, and explains the Japanese tradition of keeping one personal item from a deceased friend.\n\n„That scene was the key scene for me“, said Zimmer, „where everything changed for everybody. And a sense of intimacy had to creep in, and the bravura had to go out of the window. That’s really where I remember I spent forever in this little room with my synthesizers, just writing that scene, before there was any footage even. It was written quite apart from the movie. I remember seeing it on the film for the first time, and ‚Yeah, that works.‘ It was a cornerstone, that would allow me to go and make all this big racket everywhere else.“ A beautiful statement of Nick’s theme, which now begins to represent Nick and Masa’s friendship, is played on a panpipe (used often by Zimmer). The cue’s pulse quickens as Nick eyes Charlie’s gun. „I can take anything I want?“ he asks Masa. „Anything“, Masa replies. Back at Sato’s raided hideout, Nick unleashes his rage tearing up the apartment, searching for some clue.\n\nA variation on the Osaka melody slides over a rapid synth beats, then the cue climaxes with another Zimmer trademark – a relentless hammering of synth chords over a descending bass line, an escalating effect he has used from *Backdraft* to *The Dark Knight*.\n\n**8. Sequins** \nThe score hits its most fun stride as Nick, frustrated with not finding anything at the hideout, suddenly spots black sequins on the coffee table. A sexy version of the Sugai theme follows Nick and Masa as they spy the beautiful woman from the nightclub, Zimmer showing off his prowess hybridizing a pop sensibility with dramatic scoring. These stakeout and trailing scenes give him the opportunity to unleash an infectious energy, with syncopated rhythms and hip jamming on the keyboard. „Sometimes you gotta forget your head and grab your balls“, Nick tells a perplexed Masa, and this cue concurs.\n\n**9. Masa’s Reprimand / Sugai Pt. 1** \nThe dynamic begins to turn between Nick and Masa, and Zimmer scores the latter’s gentle lecture about integrity with a teary panpipe intro to Nick’s theme. The melody continues tenderly, backed by bongos, as the camera pans to Nick and Masa back at their stakeout. They see their woman emerge from the building, and an excited rhythm commences a virtuoso exploration of the Sugai theme. Zimmer’s knack for crafting a catchy, accelerating foot chase – a modern example would be „Mombasa“ from *Inception* – is on full display here, as he mounts anticipation with percussion and chord fragments before indulging in a pulsating statement of the melody. As Nick and Masa follow the woman to the point of „making the switch“, then pursue one of Sato’s henchmen to the steel mill, Zimmer develops the idea, creates tension with an interlude, then takes another step up with the theme. With Nick and Masa running out into a horde of khaki-dressed cyclists, a primitive, pounding ostinato is introduced, and the cue fades out as they enter the mill.\n\n**10. The Steel Mill** \nA largely atmospheric cue underscores the meeting between Sato and Sugai. Nick and Masa watch from a distance, molten steel bubbling around them. Zimmer’s cue blends with the humming and beeping ambience of the industrial setting, and punctuates the tense discussion held by the old oyabun and the impudent renegade.\n\n**11. Steel Mill Chase / Airplane / Escape** \nPercussion hits rattle while Nick pulls a gun on Sato and his men, inciting a scrap. Nick blows up a motorcycle and, like a good action hero, runs through the flames – the percussion and synth effects intensifying. Back on the streets, Zimmer scores the chase with a throttling rhythm over a deep bass line. Nick is held by the Japanese police as Sato gets away, and told he is getting on a plane back to America. A soldierly trumpet plays over Zimmer’s hammering synth chords, Masa looking on with regret. Nick’s theme plays on ichigenkin as he looks out the airplane window to see Charlie’s casket being loaded into the cargo hold. The cue’s heart rate quickens under Nick’s undaunted escape through the plane’s mechanized dumbwaiter, and the militaristic ostinato follows him off the tarmac and back to Masa’s apartment.\n\n**12. Sugai Pt. 2** \nWith help from Joyce, Nick approaches Sugai at his hangout on the third floor of a driving range. The Osaka theme is briefly stated, and the score turns uncomfortably menacing while Nick is held by his jacket with one foot off the platform. Plashing keyboard takes us outside Sugai’s house, where pouring rain accentuates the topic being discussed within. Music plays in a sinister mood under Nick and Sugai’s repartee by a roaring fireplace, the Osaka theme fluttering on a low panpipe. The theme slithers beneath Sugai’s monologue about the atom bomb and his aftermath, how it’s resulting black rain spawned a hatred of America and the creation of Sato. Nick makes a deal with Sugai to catch Sato, and a loud burst cuts to Nick being dropped off in the rolling farmlands later that night. He is given a rifle and a few rounds, and the Sugai motif flares as Nick cocks the gun. The primitive ostinato drives Nick thorugh the fields to his destination.\n\n**13. Arrival of Oyabuns / Sato’s Arrival / Meeting** \nA shakuhachi announces the arrival of the oyabuns at the farmhouse, and the Sugai motif tags along with Nick. A fue plays stormily while the men enter the house. Pounding percussion and synth chords arrive with Sato. Ichigenkin and fue face off during the edgy „Meeting“ inside, where Sato hands over his counterfeiting plate and is lectured by Sugai about responsibility. Low, monk-like voices hum after Sato submits to a very sharp and irreversible pinky swear. Percussion beats like a time bomb as Sato’s men, disguised as farmers, prepare for a skirmish.\n\n**14. Bikes / Fight / Nick and Masa** \nSato stabs Sugai’s hand, and a gunfight breaks out among the lackeys. The score kicks in when Sato, pursued by Nick, discovers some „Bikes“ – and the action-packed culmination of the film’s opening motorcycle scene is brought to bear. (The cue used in the film is actually the percussion-only alternate presented on disc two.) Zimmer supplies a badass heartbeat for the chase, here colored with wild electric guitar and fragments of the Sugai theme. When Nick trips up Sato’s bike in the mud, a fist „Fight“ ensures, and Zimmer brings back his rhythmic trademark within a tangle of synth racket. Nick gets the upper hand, twisting his opponent’s pinky stub and head-butting him, and an action-hero take on his theme surges on guitar. Witness here the very root of the Zimmer action sound that dominated the 1990s and changed an entire genre of movie music. The cue slows to a pregnant metrical pause, teasing out the question of whether Nick will impale a helpless Sato… and we jump cut to „Nick and Masa“ leading their prisoner into police headquarters. Nick’s theme surfaces, victorious, as the scene segues to a ceremony honoring the two cops. A galvanized version of the Osaka theme returns in this grand musical finale that is equal parts epic, 80s, and essential Zimmer. A throbbing interlude underscores Nick and Joyce’s wrap-up conversation and consummating kiss. At the airport Nick and Masa realize it’s time to say goodbye, and a friendship of percussion and Japanese instrumentation plays out as they give each other gifts. They shake hands like „good friends“ in Japan do, and the score climaxes with a salutary statement of the Osaka theme – and finishes off with a powerful electric guitar performance of Nick’s theme.\n\n#### Disc Two\n\n**Original EMI Album**\n\n**1. Living on the Edge of the Night** \nThe song plays early in the film, briefly, as Nick preps in the bathroom for his hearing.\n\n**2. The Way You Do the Things You Do** \nThis is heard on an aerial shot of Osaka, which cuts to the nightclub scene when, later, Charlie and Masa sing karaoke.\n\n**3. Back to Life (Jam on the Groove Mix)** \nThe song plays under a later nightclub scene when Nick asks Joyce where to find Sugai.\n\n**4. Laserman** \nWritten by Japanese film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (*The Last Emperor*), the song is heard as Nick watches Sugai leave the nightclub.\n\n**5. Singing in the Shower** \nThis plays in the nightclub immediately following „The Way You Do the Things You Do“.\n\n**6. I’ll Be Holding On** \nThis commercial album version, electric guitar-heavy, closes out the movie (as Nick gives Masa a farewell thumbs-up at the airport) and plays over the end credits.\n\n**7. *Black Rain* Suite: Sato** \nZimmer crafted four suites of his score for the original soundtrack album. This suite is comprised of the cues „Sato“ Pts. 1–4.\n\n**8. *Black Rain* Suite: Charlie Loses His Head** \nThis is the same as the „Charlie“ track on disc one, but with the added instrumentation heard in „Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)“, and without the unused passage of gentle high strings and keyboards and further panpipe statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**9. *Black Rain* Suite: Sugai** \nThis suite is comprised of „Sugai Pt. 1“ and the middle section (scoring the conversation at Sugai’s mansion) and end of „Sugai Pt. 2“ (when Nick is dropped off in the fields).\n\n**10. *Black Rain* Suite: Nick and Masa** \nThis suite is comprised of selections from the full „Nick and Masa“ cue.\n\n**Bonus Tracks**\n\n**11. Airplane Muzak (source)** \nWritten by orchestrator Shirley Walker, this source cue is heard in the background of the airplane scene after Nick and Charlie first arrive in Osaka.\n\n**12. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 1 (alternate percussion)** \nThis cue, for the actual trapping and beheading scene, has an added, relentless beating of gunshot percussion throughout.\n\n**13. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)** \nThis alternate passage would be heard from after Charlie’s death through the selecting of his possessions, with added koto embellishments.\n\n**14. Masa’s Reprimand (alternate)** \nHere, a cello line and repeating two-step synth line have been removed from the cue’s final statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**15. Bikes / Fight (alternate)** \nThis is the epic climax in a whole different guise – like an unabashed club dance track – and in it the seeds of Zimmer’s massively influential 90s action sound can be heard sprouting. The pounding ostinato is given a workout and expands tonally, leaping up to each new chord. Syncopated percussion gives the action cue a pop-influenced form, with more internal logic. Electric guitar is added with a more melodic function rather than just to provide the noise of chaos. Amped-up synth and electric guitar propel the Osaka melody, there are additional statements of Nick’s theme, and a straining, spiraling figuration that leads to what is essentially a bridge. The cue continues to rock out with hotshot electric guitar, and fades out on the note-climbing ostinato.\n\n**16. Bikes (percussion only)** \nThis is the cue used for the bike chase in the film, heard with the original overlaid music on disc one.\n\n**17. Charlie Loses His Head (monks wild)** \nThis track of bellowing, monk-line male vocals was superimposed over the beginning of the „Charlie“ cue in the film, and again when Charlie is stabbed by Sato – giving the dark event an even more nightmarish air. It’s used again after Nick and Sato’s bikes wreck in the mud, and they wrestle near the revving wheel.\n\n**18. I’ll Be Holding On (main title version)** \nDerived from Nick’s theme, Zimmer co-wrote the song with lyricist Will Jennings (who later penned a decent-sized hit for Celine Dion with „My Heart Will Go On“). This subtler keyboard version opens the film and introduces us to Nick, riding his motorcycle.\n\n*Tim Greiving writes for **Film Score Monthly Online**, and wrote these liner notes in London. He probably listened to „Sugai Pt. 1“ a billion times – not because he had to, but because it welcomely ate its way into his brain.*\n\n#### About this Release\n\nIt’s thrilling when one has the opportunity to work on a soundtrack that is not only from a Ridley Scott film, but is also one of Hans Zimmer’s earlier scores (and one of his self-admitted favorites).\n\nThe source material for *Black Rain* came from 2-track DATs from the Paramount archives, transferred by Johnny Dee Davis at Precision AudioSonics, then mastered by Doug Schwartz at Mulholland Music. Early on, it was decided that the first disc would present Hans Zimmer’s score and the second disc would re-issue the original Virgin Movie Music soundtrack album (remastered) along with whatever bonus material we could find worth including.\n\nThose bonus tracks would end up including the main title version of „I’ll Be Holding On“, a source cue by Shirley Walker, and my personal favorite, the unused alternate for „Bikes / Fight“ (Disc 2, Track 16), a shamelessly fun and enjoyable track that stands as a precursor to Zimmer’s 1990s „power anthem“ action style.\n\nI hope you find as much enjoyment in this expanded release of *Black Rain* as as I had in putting it together.\n\n*Dan Goldwasser \nProducer for La-La Land Records \nLos Angeles, August 2012*", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "22", "covers": [ "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture/cover/1.jpg", "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture/cover/2.jpg" ], "cover": "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture/cover/1.jpg", "works_id": [ "30" ], "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } ], "main_work": { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } } ], "main_recording": { "id": "65", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", "uri": "black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack", "label_id": "14", "release_date": "1989", "update": "1570025947", "notes_teaser": "", "notes_body": "", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "21", "covers": [ "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack/cover/1.jpg" ], "cover": "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack/cover/1.jpg", "works_id": [ "30" ], "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } ], "main_work": { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } }, "writers_id": [ 1, "1" ], "writers_name": [ "Hans Zimmer", "Hans Zimmer" ], "writers": [ { "id": "1", "name": "Zimmer", "first_name": "Hans", "uri": "hans_zimmer", "banner": "https://hzdb.net/assets/img/persons/hans_zimmer/banner.png" }, { "id": "1", "name": "Zimmer", "first_name": "Hans", "uri": "hans_zimmer", "banner": "https://hzdb.net/assets/img/persons/hans_zimmer/banner.png" } ] }, "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1" } ], "recordings": [ { "id": "65", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", "uri": "black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack", "label_id": "14", "release_date": "1989", "update": "1570025947", "notes_teaser": "", "notes_body": "", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "21" }, { "id": "114", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Music from the Motion Picture", "uri": "black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture", "label_id": "33", "release_date": "2012", "update": "1583063165", "notes_teaser": "#### One big gray area\n\n*by Tim Greiving*\n\nNick Conkling has problems. Divorced, behind in his payments, under suspicion for graft, and working the streets of New York City („one big gray area“, as he describes it), the cop now has the Japanese mafia – the yakuza – to contend with. Lunching with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia) after a hearing with internal affairs, Nick (Michael Douglas) witnesses a brutal murder by Sato (Yûsaku Matsuda). The wild-eyed maniac is caught, but the Japanese want to deal with him themselves – and Nick and Charlie are tasked with transport and chaperone duties.", "notes_body": "Arriving in Osaka, the New York cops are outwitted and robbed of their catch, and suddenly they are embroiled in a wide-scale counterfeiting operation and bloody mob war in a very foreign country. There is a seismic clash of cultures and personalities, with local English-speaking cop Masahiro (Ken Takakura) assigned to inform (and babysit) his New York counterparts, especially the pugnacious Conklin. Sharp knives, steel mills, and motorcycle chases hurtle Nick and Masa into an unlikely friendship, and everyone who survives emerges a little wiser – Masa taking a cue from Nick’s balls-to-the-wall audacity, and Nick accepting lessons in humility and honor.\n\n*Black Rain* saw director Ridley Scott, who contributed *Alien* and *Blade Runner* to the canon of great cinema and went on an impressive genre-crawl during the 1980s, tackling yet another genre – this time the gritty cop thriller. The 1989 film is marked by its abundance: of great actors (American and Japanese), of high-stake chases, of moody visual atmosphere, of ramped-up culture shock, and of pure energy. The film begins with a shot of a free-roaming motorcycle, and it streaks through the streets of New York City to the alleyways of Osaka, hardly ever letting up on the gas.\n\nFueling the film is a badass Michael Douglas, a cynical cop who lets New York City ethics get into his lungs. As Nick, Douglas unloads a barrage of classic New York cop comebacks and zingers, defies other motorcyclists to race, holds his own with a handgun, and does his best to shake up the Japanese police system. Andy Garcia provides a gregarious social softener as Nick’s partner and buddy, translating his friend’s more colorful American colloquialisms, playing peacemaker in Japan, and even grandstanding at karaoke night.\n\nKen Takakura gives the strongest and most subtle performance as Masa, the principled Japanese cop who trades some Eastern wisdom for a little of Nick’s hellbent tenacity. Kate Capshaw has a small role as an extremely knowledgeable Chicagoan in the belly of Osaka. Yûsaku Matsuda, who who knew he had bladder cancer before accepting the part of Sato (though Ridley Scott did not), turned in his swan song performance as the uninhibitedly intense villain. Fully aware that such a physical role would only make his cancer worse, Matsuda – whose career in film and television began in the early 70s – considered it a worthy trade. He felt that being in the film would give him immortality. He died within weeks of the film’s release.\n\nIt was Michael Douglas who was first attracted to Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis’ *Black Rain* screenplay. Douglas was hot off the success of Oliver Stone’s *Wall Street*, and wanted to play corruption in another key. He also had an eye on current events, and was interested in making something topical. „I felt there was something between us and Japan that was unresolved“, he said, „that was a mixture of hostility and admiration on both sides – really confused. It involves Japan’s cultural imitation of the United States, all of which is colored by lingering memories of World War II. …I thought that this particular picture, as a cop-action picture, could explore some of the differences in customs and behavior – explore some of the hostilities that our two cultures and societies have for each other.“\n\nRidley Scott was pursued to direct the film (rather than the other way around), and it presented a further step, after his thriller *Someone to Watch Over Me*, away from the big sci-fi and fantasy movies for which he was known. Scott, too, was fascinated by the tension between Japan and the U.S. „The way in is the conflict between police methods“, he explained. „Michael – as Conklin – is a New York homicide detective with a certain disgruntlement, a certain dissatisfaction with the system and a certain renegade quality. It’s even suggested that he’s on the take in a minor way. Ken [Takakura], on the other hand, is a thorough, by-the-book, hardline bureaucrat who is part of what seems to be this wonderful machine in Japan.“\n\n„Michael, I think“, he continued, „reestablishes some lost values in himself – traditional values, which somewhere along the line have been lost in the West but which I think still exist in Japan, such as a sense of honor and a sense of family – through his experience with this Japanese character. And Ken – who plays a kind of Japanese Everyman, the salaried man, the bourgeois, what we think of as an automaton – loses his rigidity and opens up through his contact with Michael and Andy Garcia. For Ken Takakura – both as a character and as an actor – to stand up and sing is an incredibly alien and even painful thing.“\n\nProduction on *Black Rain* was not without its problems, mirroring (and perhaps fueling) the hot culture clash in the story. Scott choose to shoot in Osaka because of its moody, industrial look (not far afield from his vision of a futuristic Los Angeles in *Blade Runner*) „Japan is difficult visually“, he said, „awkward visually.“ He found Kyoto and Tokyo too „squeaky-clean“, and settled on Osaka – Japan’s third largest city – for its noir-ish vibe. Michael Douglas chose not to visit the country until casting sessions for the Japanese actors. „I wanted to see Japan with fresh eyes“, he said, „as the character does.“\n\nThe casting sessions certainly gave Douglas an insight into Conklin’s cultural confusion. Scott and company held auditions for all the Japanese roles, in keeping with standard Hollywood procedure. „In Japan, though“, said associate producer Alan Poul, „actors do not audition. The idea of putting yourself in a position that’s potentially humiliating is very disagreeable – and very alien to the Japanese experience. They spend their lives making each other’s lives easy – often that’s a priority over honesty, over frugality. …But here, we had within the space a few days many of the nation’s top actors coming in and out of the Imperial Hotel, which is the most prominently situated hotel in Tokyo.“\n\nFor actors like Takakura, a matinee idol considered the „Clint Eastwood of Japan“, it was the first of many humbling (or irritating) differences between two very different ways of doing things. „Each actor would arrive with his manager“, said Scott, „the manager being fairly angry at having to be there at all. But because we were so well promoted, they were torn between not coming at all and coming to see what was going on.“\n\nShooting lasted four months, and ultimately only six weeks of that was done in Japan. There simply wasn’t the structural support or protocol of shooting on location at the time, with Japan’s film industry still using mostly sets. Police were inexperienced with crowd control for filmed street scenes, and locals exhibited an image-consciousness that proved a road-block. „People thought that having their store or their house used as a place frequently by yakuza would reflect badly on them“, said Poul. „And when we wanted to play a row of shops in a fish market as someone’s apartment, we were told, ‚But people don’t really live here.‘“ And so, many of the Osaka scenes were shot in California: the nightclub set was constructed on the Paramount lot; Sugai’s grand house was actually in Los Feliz; the steel mill sequence began in Japan but, because it was illegal to use gunfire while the mill was in operation, was finished in Fontana; and Napa Valley stood in for Japanese farmland for the climactic shootout and motorcycle chase.\n\n„I’ve done a lot of physically demanding films“, Takakura told the *Los Angeles Times*, promoting the film. „I’ve been dragged to the South Pole and to the North Pole. I’ve had to climb glaciers and stand naked in sub-zero weather in Hokkaido, and I would say that making this film was just a tough, maybe even tougher, than any of them.“\n\n*Black Rain* was released in the U.S. on September 22, 1989, and grossed nearly $10 million in its opening weekend. It went on to make more than $134 million worldwide, and was nominated by the Academy for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing. Critics praised the film’s aesthetics, and many credited it for rising above the tropes of its genre. „*Black Rain* is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids“, wrote Rita Kempley for *The Washington Post*. „What raises the film above the herd“, Peter Travers wrote in *Rolling Stone*, „is the way Scott lets the traditions of a foreign land work changes on Conklin. …By refusing to beat its Eastern and Western protagonists into comic-book pulp, the movie pays them, and the audience, a rare compliment.“\n\n#### *Black Rain* Man\n\nHans Zimmer had just enjoyed his grand coming-out party as composer for the Oscar-sweeper *Rain Man*, and in short time his career and influence in film music went from simmering to ablaze. „I sat there watching… *Rain Man*“, said Ridley Scott, „and I became conscious of the score. It kind of felt bigger than it ought to be, and yet it worked. It was playing an internal world, yet it was a big track. I waited until the end and said, ‚Who’s that? Oh, Hans Zimmer. Who the hell’s that? I’ll call him up.’ I was impressed by the music, you know. As simple as that.“\n\nIt was an easy choice for the young Zimmer to hitch onto the acclaimed director’s wagon, and it would be the first of six films they worked on together. „We just started chatting“, said Zimmer. „I said to him, ‚So how do I not get fired off a Ridley Scott film?‘ And he said, ‚Well, don’t write me a symphony. Write something that’s appropriate for the movie.’ We started working right away, and we started coming up with some fairly unconventional ideas.“\n\n„Unconventional“ is a word Zimmer has often used for his work – not always to the liking of „conventional“ ears – but there is inarguably something brash and fresh about his music for this violent world of culture combustion in Osaka. „I was aware that not all scores had to be done orchestrally“, said the composer, „and that there was an interesting way to present a foreign culture to America, or to Europe, etc., by using some of the instruments from that culture. It’s so easy to go and steal all the clichés from a culture, and sort of string them together and go, ‚Hey, here it is!‘ as opposed just saying, ‚Okay, I’m just writing from my point of view, but I’m going to interpret it by musicians from that culture.‘“\n\n„There’s a very strong sense of percussion in Japanese culture, and because Ridley shot the film in very sort of modern way, and it was Osaka where he shot a lot of stuff, it’s very industrial. For all the percussive elements, I used synthesizers and electronics. Because I wanted it to be really hard. I wanted each percussion hit to be like a gunshot.“\n\nThe score was orchestrated and conducted by Shirley Walker, who had just conducted Danny Elfman’s *Batman*. It was Walker’s first project with Zimmer, and she conducted many of his early scores up through 1992’s *Toys*. They met at the time of Zimmer’s transition to L.A. from London, as they shared the same agent. „I had a lunch meeting with him and his partner and we all hit it off“, Walker recalled, „and we had a glorious span of projects there for quite a few years. Hans actually got me another feature, *Chicago Joe and the Showgirl* [1990], which again is a shared credit. It’s nothing he wrote a note of, but his contractual obligation was such that he kept his name on it.“ Walker’s own contribution to the *Black Rain* soundtrack is the lovely „Airplane Muzak“ source cue.\n\nThe score is a significant marker on the Zimmer timeline, and is a showcase of an emerging composer finding his voice and barreling down with a young man’s intensity. It is both a stylistic and thematic outgrowth of his score to *Rain Man* (with it’s „bigger“, pop-influenced synth approach), and a foundational work full of hints and patterns of trademarks he would use throughout his burgeoning career – even up to his most recent work. It’s also just a damn fun listen.\n\n#### Disc One\n\n**1. Sato Pt. 1 / One-Way Glass** \nThe first score cue in the film enters under the tense sequence that introduces Sato and the yakuza, and the music immediately throws us into a dark and oriental environment with colors of an ichigenkin (Japanese zither) and shakuhachi punctuating a brooding synthesizer intro. In the film the cue clashes with the Bobby Darin song „Beyond the Sea“ playing inside the deli, then replaces it. Sato isn’t given his own musical theme in *Black Rain*, per se (although the dark clouds of Osaka do prompt a recuring motif, heard first in this cue at 3:45). His menace is usually accompanied by these kinds of sinister native sounds, and his action by the percussive chaos that follows as Nick and Charlie chase Sato through the streets of New York and into a meat locker. A bedlam of Zimmer’s synth „gunshots“ is laced with sakuhachi, electric guitar, and other effects as Sato fights between swinging meat like a caged animal, before finally being overtaken. „One-Way-Glass“ crops up at the end of the following scene, as Sato makes threats to an invisible Conklin through the interrogation room mirror. Zimmer scores the scene with an ominous, throbbing synth effect, the trickling sound of a rainstick, and shakuhachi.\n\n**2. Osaka / Phony Cops** \nThe score truly announces itself during the dramatic flyover of Osaka, cast by Scott in a glow of orange and pink with smokestacks choking out billows of industrial exhaust. The Osaka theme opens with thundering beats, and is performed on a Japanese fue. Its oriental intervals thrust us into the foreign land, acknowledging the culture clash about to hit the fan – and its dark, foreboding tone prophesies violence. Nick and Charlie hand Sato over to Japanese authorities who enter the back of the plane, scored by pulsing clatter, bass, and fat synth surges.\n\n**3. You Gonna Be Nice? / Sato Pt. 2** \nThe accelerated heartbeat from the previous cue continues, unused in the film. After Nick and Charlie are assigned their (less-than thrilled) local guide, the music blasts them like a gunshot out onto the night streets of Osaka, sirens blaring. Accompanying them into the film’s central central nightclub, the score reflects the neon blue and elegant women populating the place. As Nick walks past a Japanese woman in a black sequin dress (Miyuki Ono), Zimmer introduces a motif that uses the first notes of the Dies Irae, a motif that is later developed into a full theme for Sugai and the crime world this woman represents – giving melodic shape to much of the score’s action. „Sato Pt. 2“ plays it cool as Nick lights up a cigarette and looks around the nightclub, watching the sequined woman being escorted out. Nick’s theme makes its first appearance here, strummed with bravado. While Nick pumps the helpfully omniscient Joyce for information about Sato and the yakuza, a measured statement of the Sugai theme plays over an exhaling synth pattern. Zimmer slowly begins to play with and develop one of the score’s catchiest ideas. „Who knows about this?“ Nick asks about the turf war he’s stumbled into, as the Osaka theme bubbles ominously in the low register. „Counting you and me?“ replies Joyce, „11 million“.\n\n**4. Sato Watching / Circling Motorbikes** \nFrom a window overlooking the street outside the nightclub, Sato eyes Nick and Charlie. Zimmer scores the villain’s menacing smile with a bending synth gesture. Percussion pounds as they become encircled by local bullies on motorcycles, the Osaka theme melodically connecting the explosive beats. Charlie expresses his reluctance to wade any further into this plot. „I can’t go back without him, Charlie“, Nick says – a lone ichigenkin sighing a fragment of Nick’s theme over a low bass line.\n\n**Sugai’s Photo / Sato Pt. 3** \nBack in the police office, Nick and Charlie are shown a photo of yakuza boss Sugai and filled in on the mob presence in Osaka. Zimmer underlines the threat with throbbing synth effects and a subtle statement of the Osaka theme. Charlie notices a team of armored police gathering outside the office, and Masa reluctantly tells them there is going to be a raid on Sato’s (supposed) last hideout. „Sato Pt. 3“ rumbles into active duty as the cops jump aboard the raid vehicle. The Osaka theme plays, full of testosterone, as the cops drive through the streets and then run through a casino. Rhythm fades to ambience inside the apartment, as Nick recognizes one of the phony cops from the airplane.\n\n**6. Sato Pt. 4** \nWaves of the chords from the nightclub scene slowly break while the cops search the hideout, and Zimmer imitates the atmospheric whirling of the (very Ridley Scott) fan in the wall. Droning synth and a shakuhachi accent the sight of Sato, who watches Nick and Charlie leaving from his motorcycle.\n\n**7. Charlie Losed His Head** \nAfter a couple of unscored scenes and the use of source songs (including a memorable karaoke rendition of „What’d I Say“), the film takes a dark turn when, walking home from the nightclub, Charlie does his characteristic torero move on a motorcyclist and is robbed of his jacket (and passport). Dissonance and sporadic drumming score Nick’s fear as he chases Charlie through a large indoor mall. A small Zimmer trademark appears here, one he has used in many dramatic scenes throughout his career: a series of half notes move stepwise, each punctuated by a blast of rapid sixteenth notes on the third beat. The score accelerates into mayhem, Nick watching helplessly through a gate as Charlie is surrounded by Sato and his thugs. A stream of primal, gunshot percussion underscores Sato, riding like a jouster towards Charlie and beheading him. The cue cuts to Nick on a bridge, dejected, with a long, high fue note. Gentle drops of the Sugai motif play as Joyce comes to comfort Nick. Nick drowns his sorrows and bemoans the tragedy („He was 28 years old“), underscored by a humbled rendition of Nick’s theme. Masa comes to visit the next morning, and explains the Japanese tradition of keeping one personal item from a deceased friend.\n\n„That scene was the key scene for me“, said Zimmer, „where everything changed for everybody. And a sense of intimacy had to creep in, and the bravura had to go out of the window. That’s really where I remember I spent forever in this little room with my synthesizers, just writing that scene, before there was any footage even. It was written quite apart from the movie. I remember seeing it on the film for the first time, and ‚Yeah, that works.‘ It was a cornerstone, that would allow me to go and make all this big racket everywhere else.“ A beautiful statement of Nick’s theme, which now begins to represent Nick and Masa’s friendship, is played on a panpipe (used often by Zimmer). The cue’s pulse quickens as Nick eyes Charlie’s gun. „I can take anything I want?“ he asks Masa. „Anything“, Masa replies. Back at Sato’s raided hideout, Nick unleashes his rage tearing up the apartment, searching for some clue.\n\nA variation on the Osaka melody slides over a rapid synth beats, then the cue climaxes with another Zimmer trademark – a relentless hammering of synth chords over a descending bass line, an escalating effect he has used from *Backdraft* to *The Dark Knight*.\n\n**8. Sequins** \nThe score hits its most fun stride as Nick, frustrated with not finding anything at the hideout, suddenly spots black sequins on the coffee table. A sexy version of the Sugai theme follows Nick and Masa as they spy the beautiful woman from the nightclub, Zimmer showing off his prowess hybridizing a pop sensibility with dramatic scoring. These stakeout and trailing scenes give him the opportunity to unleash an infectious energy, with syncopated rhythms and hip jamming on the keyboard. „Sometimes you gotta forget your head and grab your balls“, Nick tells a perplexed Masa, and this cue concurs.\n\n**9. Masa’s Reprimand / Sugai Pt. 1** \nThe dynamic begins to turn between Nick and Masa, and Zimmer scores the latter’s gentle lecture about integrity with a teary panpipe intro to Nick’s theme. The melody continues tenderly, backed by bongos, as the camera pans to Nick and Masa back at their stakeout. They see their woman emerge from the building, and an excited rhythm commences a virtuoso exploration of the Sugai theme. Zimmer’s knack for crafting a catchy, accelerating foot chase – a modern example would be „Mombasa“ from *Inception* – is on full display here, as he mounts anticipation with percussion and chord fragments before indulging in a pulsating statement of the melody. As Nick and Masa follow the woman to the point of „making the switch“, then pursue one of Sato’s henchmen to the steel mill, Zimmer develops the idea, creates tension with an interlude, then takes another step up with the theme. With Nick and Masa running out into a horde of khaki-dressed cyclists, a primitive, pounding ostinato is introduced, and the cue fades out as they enter the mill.\n\n**10. The Steel Mill** \nA largely atmospheric cue underscores the meeting between Sato and Sugai. Nick and Masa watch from a distance, molten steel bubbling around them. Zimmer’s cue blends with the humming and beeping ambience of the industrial setting, and punctuates the tense discussion held by the old oyabun and the impudent renegade.\n\n**11. Steel Mill Chase / Airplane / Escape** \nPercussion hits rattle while Nick pulls a gun on Sato and his men, inciting a scrap. Nick blows up a motorcycle and, like a good action hero, runs through the flames – the percussion and synth effects intensifying. Back on the streets, Zimmer scores the chase with a throttling rhythm over a deep bass line. Nick is held by the Japanese police as Sato gets away, and told he is getting on a plane back to America. A soldierly trumpet plays over Zimmer’s hammering synth chords, Masa looking on with regret. Nick’s theme plays on ichigenkin as he looks out the airplane window to see Charlie’s casket being loaded into the cargo hold. The cue’s heart rate quickens under Nick’s undaunted escape through the plane’s mechanized dumbwaiter, and the militaristic ostinato follows him off the tarmac and back to Masa’s apartment.\n\n**12. Sugai Pt. 2** \nWith help from Joyce, Nick approaches Sugai at his hangout on the third floor of a driving range. The Osaka theme is briefly stated, and the score turns uncomfortably menacing while Nick is held by his jacket with one foot off the platform. Plashing keyboard takes us outside Sugai’s house, where pouring rain accentuates the topic being discussed within. Music plays in a sinister mood under Nick and Sugai’s repartee by a roaring fireplace, the Osaka theme fluttering on a low panpipe. The theme slithers beneath Sugai’s monologue about the atom bomb and his aftermath, how it’s resulting black rain spawned a hatred of America and the creation of Sato. Nick makes a deal with Sugai to catch Sato, and a loud burst cuts to Nick being dropped off in the rolling farmlands later that night. He is given a rifle and a few rounds, and the Sugai motif flares as Nick cocks the gun. The primitive ostinato drives Nick thorugh the fields to his destination.\n\n**13. Arrival of Oyabuns / Sato’s Arrival / Meeting** \nA shakuhachi announces the arrival of the oyabuns at the farmhouse, and the Sugai motif tags along with Nick. A fue plays stormily while the men enter the house. Pounding percussion and synth chords arrive with Sato. Ichigenkin and fue face off during the edgy „Meeting“ inside, where Sato hands over his counterfeiting plate and is lectured by Sugai about responsibility. Low, monk-like voices hum after Sato submits to a very sharp and irreversible pinky swear. Percussion beats like a time bomb as Sato’s men, disguised as farmers, prepare for a skirmish.\n\n**14. Bikes / Fight / Nick and Masa** \nSato stabs Sugai’s hand, and a gunfight breaks out among the lackeys. The score kicks in when Sato, pursued by Nick, discovers some „Bikes“ – and the action-packed culmination of the film’s opening motorcycle scene is brought to bear. (The cue used in the film is actually the percussion-only alternate presented on disc two.) Zimmer supplies a badass heartbeat for the chase, here colored with wild electric guitar and fragments of the Sugai theme. When Nick trips up Sato’s bike in the mud, a fist „Fight“ ensures, and Zimmer brings back his rhythmic trademark within a tangle of synth racket. Nick gets the upper hand, twisting his opponent’s pinky stub and head-butting him, and an action-hero take on his theme surges on guitar. Witness here the very root of the Zimmer action sound that dominated the 1990s and changed an entire genre of movie music. The cue slows to a pregnant metrical pause, teasing out the question of whether Nick will impale a helpless Sato… and we jump cut to „Nick and Masa“ leading their prisoner into police headquarters. Nick’s theme surfaces, victorious, as the scene segues to a ceremony honoring the two cops. A galvanized version of the Osaka theme returns in this grand musical finale that is equal parts epic, 80s, and essential Zimmer. A throbbing interlude underscores Nick and Joyce’s wrap-up conversation and consummating kiss. At the airport Nick and Masa realize it’s time to say goodbye, and a friendship of percussion and Japanese instrumentation plays out as they give each other gifts. They shake hands like „good friends“ in Japan do, and the score climaxes with a salutary statement of the Osaka theme – and finishes off with a powerful electric guitar performance of Nick’s theme.\n\n#### Disc Two\n\n**Original EMI Album**\n\n**1. Living on the Edge of the Night** \nThe song plays early in the film, briefly, as Nick preps in the bathroom for his hearing.\n\n**2. The Way You Do the Things You Do** \nThis is heard on an aerial shot of Osaka, which cuts to the nightclub scene when, later, Charlie and Masa sing karaoke.\n\n**3. Back to Life (Jam on the Groove Mix)** \nThe song plays under a later nightclub scene when Nick asks Joyce where to find Sugai.\n\n**4. Laserman** \nWritten by Japanese film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (*The Last Emperor*), the song is heard as Nick watches Sugai leave the nightclub.\n\n**5. Singing in the Shower** \nThis plays in the nightclub immediately following „The Way You Do the Things You Do“.\n\n**6. I’ll Be Holding On** \nThis commercial album version, electric guitar-heavy, closes out the movie (as Nick gives Masa a farewell thumbs-up at the airport) and plays over the end credits.\n\n**7. *Black Rain* Suite: Sato** \nZimmer crafted four suites of his score for the original soundtrack album. This suite is comprised of the cues „Sato“ Pts. 1–4.\n\n**8. *Black Rain* Suite: Charlie Loses His Head** \nThis is the same as the „Charlie“ track on disc one, but with the added instrumentation heard in „Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)“, and without the unused passage of gentle high strings and keyboards and further panpipe statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**9. *Black Rain* Suite: Sugai** \nThis suite is comprised of „Sugai Pt. 1“ and the middle section (scoring the conversation at Sugai’s mansion) and end of „Sugai Pt. 2“ (when Nick is dropped off in the fields).\n\n**10. *Black Rain* Suite: Nick and Masa** \nThis suite is comprised of selections from the full „Nick and Masa“ cue.\n\n**Bonus Tracks**\n\n**11. Airplane Muzak (source)** \nWritten by orchestrator Shirley Walker, this source cue is heard in the background of the airplane scene after Nick and Charlie first arrive in Osaka.\n\n**12. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 1 (alternate percussion)** \nThis cue, for the actual trapping and beheading scene, has an added, relentless beating of gunshot percussion throughout.\n\n**13. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)** \nThis alternate passage would be heard from after Charlie’s death through the selecting of his possessions, with added koto embellishments.\n\n**14. Masa’s Reprimand (alternate)** \nHere, a cello line and repeating two-step synth line have been removed from the cue’s final statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**15. Bikes / Fight (alternate)** \nThis is the epic climax in a whole different guise – like an unabashed club dance track – and in it the seeds of Zimmer’s massively influential 90s action sound can be heard sprouting. The pounding ostinato is given a workout and expands tonally, leaping up to each new chord. Syncopated percussion gives the action cue a pop-influenced form, with more internal logic. Electric guitar is added with a more melodic function rather than just to provide the noise of chaos. Amped-up synth and electric guitar propel the Osaka melody, there are additional statements of Nick’s theme, and a straining, spiraling figuration that leads to what is essentially a bridge. The cue continues to rock out with hotshot electric guitar, and fades out on the note-climbing ostinato.\n\n**16. Bikes (percussion only)** \nThis is the cue used for the bike chase in the film, heard with the original overlaid music on disc one.\n\n**17. Charlie Loses His Head (monks wild)** \nThis track of bellowing, monk-line male vocals was superimposed over the beginning of the „Charlie“ cue in the film, and again when Charlie is stabbed by Sato – giving the dark event an even more nightmarish air. It’s used again after Nick and Sato’s bikes wreck in the mud, and they wrestle near the revving wheel.\n\n**18. I’ll Be Holding On (main title version)** \nDerived from Nick’s theme, Zimmer co-wrote the song with lyricist Will Jennings (who later penned a decent-sized hit for Celine Dion with „My Heart Will Go On“). This subtler keyboard version opens the film and introduces us to Nick, riding his motorcycle.\n\n*Tim Greiving writes for **Film Score Monthly Online**, and wrote these liner notes in London. He probably listened to „Sugai Pt. 1“ a billion times – not because he had to, but because it welcomely ate its way into his brain.*\n\n#### About this Release\n\nIt’s thrilling when one has the opportunity to work on a soundtrack that is not only from a Ridley Scott film, but is also one of Hans Zimmer’s earlier scores (and one of his self-admitted favorites).\n\nThe source material for *Black Rain* came from 2-track DATs from the Paramount archives, transferred by Johnny Dee Davis at Precision AudioSonics, then mastered by Doug Schwartz at Mulholland Music. Early on, it was decided that the first disc would present Hans Zimmer’s score and the second disc would re-issue the original Virgin Movie Music soundtrack album (remastered) along with whatever bonus material we could find worth including.\n\nThose bonus tracks would end up including the main title version of „I’ll Be Holding On“, a source cue by Shirley Walker, and my personal favorite, the unused alternate for „Bikes / Fight“ (Disc 2, Track 16), a shamelessly fun and enjoyable track that stands as a precursor to Zimmer’s 1990s „power anthem“ action style.\n\nI hope you find as much enjoyment in this expanded release of *Black Rain* as as I had in putting it together.\n\n*Dan Goldwasser \nProducer for La-La Land Records \nLos Angeles, August 2012*", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "22" } ], "origins": [], "writers": [ { "id": "2417", "name": "Zimmer", "first_name": "Hans", "uri": "hans_zimmer", "track_id": "880", "person_id": "1", "order": "0" } ], "performers": [], "recordingModel": { "pager": null }, "memberModel": { "pager": null }, "page": "Nick and Masa", "nav": "", "js": [ "_inc/playlists-js" ], "z_class": "z", "z_fill": "#8a63fc", "work": { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1" } } ] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/system/View/View.php", "line": 213, "args": [ "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/app/Views/works/track.php" ], "function": "include" }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/system/View/View.php", "line": 216, "function": "CodeIgniter\\View\\{closure}", "class": "CodeIgniter\\View\\View", "type": "->", "args": [] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/system/Common.php", "line": 1177, "function": "render", "class": "CodeIgniter\\View\\View", "type": "->", "args": [ "works/track", [], true ] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/app/Controllers/Track.php", "line": 30, "function": "view", "args": [ "works/track", { "track": { "id": "880", "title": "Nick and Masa", "time": "173", "score": "1", "notes": "This suite is comprised of selections from the full „Nick and Masa“ cue.", "hans": "1", "audio": "black_rain/nick_and_masa", "recordings_id": [ "65", "114" ], "recordings": [ { "id": "65", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", "uri": "black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack", "label_id": "14", "release_date": "1989", "update": "1570025947", "notes_teaser": "", "notes_body": "", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "21", "covers": [ "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack/cover/1.jpg" ], "cover": "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack/cover/1.jpg", "works_id": [ "30" ], "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } ], "main_work": { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } }, { "id": "114", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Music from the Motion Picture", "uri": "black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture", "label_id": "33", "release_date": "2012", "update": "1583063165", "notes_teaser": "#### One big gray area\n\n*by Tim Greiving*\n\nNick Conkling has problems. Divorced, behind in his payments, under suspicion for graft, and working the streets of New York City („one big gray area“, as he describes it), the cop now has the Japanese mafia – the yakuza – to contend with. Lunching with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia) after a hearing with internal affairs, Nick (Michael Douglas) witnesses a brutal murder by Sato (Yûsaku Matsuda). The wild-eyed maniac is caught, but the Japanese want to deal with him themselves – and Nick and Charlie are tasked with transport and chaperone duties.", "notes_body": "Arriving in Osaka, the New York cops are outwitted and robbed of their catch, and suddenly they are embroiled in a wide-scale counterfeiting operation and bloody mob war in a very foreign country. There is a seismic clash of cultures and personalities, with local English-speaking cop Masahiro (Ken Takakura) assigned to inform (and babysit) his New York counterparts, especially the pugnacious Conklin. Sharp knives, steel mills, and motorcycle chases hurtle Nick and Masa into an unlikely friendship, and everyone who survives emerges a little wiser – Masa taking a cue from Nick’s balls-to-the-wall audacity, and Nick accepting lessons in humility and honor.\n\n*Black Rain* saw director Ridley Scott, who contributed *Alien* and *Blade Runner* to the canon of great cinema and went on an impressive genre-crawl during the 1980s, tackling yet another genre – this time the gritty cop thriller. The 1989 film is marked by its abundance: of great actors (American and Japanese), of high-stake chases, of moody visual atmosphere, of ramped-up culture shock, and of pure energy. The film begins with a shot of a free-roaming motorcycle, and it streaks through the streets of New York City to the alleyways of Osaka, hardly ever letting up on the gas.\n\nFueling the film is a badass Michael Douglas, a cynical cop who lets New York City ethics get into his lungs. As Nick, Douglas unloads a barrage of classic New York cop comebacks and zingers, defies other motorcyclists to race, holds his own with a handgun, and does his best to shake up the Japanese police system. Andy Garcia provides a gregarious social softener as Nick’s partner and buddy, translating his friend’s more colorful American colloquialisms, playing peacemaker in Japan, and even grandstanding at karaoke night.\n\nKen Takakura gives the strongest and most subtle performance as Masa, the principled Japanese cop who trades some Eastern wisdom for a little of Nick’s hellbent tenacity. Kate Capshaw has a small role as an extremely knowledgeable Chicagoan in the belly of Osaka. Yûsaku Matsuda, who who knew he had bladder cancer before accepting the part of Sato (though Ridley Scott did not), turned in his swan song performance as the uninhibitedly intense villain. Fully aware that such a physical role would only make his cancer worse, Matsuda – whose career in film and television began in the early 70s – considered it a worthy trade. He felt that being in the film would give him immortality. He died within weeks of the film’s release.\n\nIt was Michael Douglas who was first attracted to Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis’ *Black Rain* screenplay. Douglas was hot off the success of Oliver Stone’s *Wall Street*, and wanted to play corruption in another key. He also had an eye on current events, and was interested in making something topical. „I felt there was something between us and Japan that was unresolved“, he said, „that was a mixture of hostility and admiration on both sides – really confused. It involves Japan’s cultural imitation of the United States, all of which is colored by lingering memories of World War II. …I thought that this particular picture, as a cop-action picture, could explore some of the differences in customs and behavior – explore some of the hostilities that our two cultures and societies have for each other.“\n\nRidley Scott was pursued to direct the film (rather than the other way around), and it presented a further step, after his thriller *Someone to Watch Over Me*, away from the big sci-fi and fantasy movies for which he was known. Scott, too, was fascinated by the tension between Japan and the U.S. „The way in is the conflict between police methods“, he explained. „Michael – as Conklin – is a New York homicide detective with a certain disgruntlement, a certain dissatisfaction with the system and a certain renegade quality. It’s even suggested that he’s on the take in a minor way. Ken [Takakura], on the other hand, is a thorough, by-the-book, hardline bureaucrat who is part of what seems to be this wonderful machine in Japan.“\n\n„Michael, I think“, he continued, „reestablishes some lost values in himself – traditional values, which somewhere along the line have been lost in the West but which I think still exist in Japan, such as a sense of honor and a sense of family – through his experience with this Japanese character. And Ken – who plays a kind of Japanese Everyman, the salaried man, the bourgeois, what we think of as an automaton – loses his rigidity and opens up through his contact with Michael and Andy Garcia. For Ken Takakura – both as a character and as an actor – to stand up and sing is an incredibly alien and even painful thing.“\n\nProduction on *Black Rain* was not without its problems, mirroring (and perhaps fueling) the hot culture clash in the story. Scott choose to shoot in Osaka because of its moody, industrial look (not far afield from his vision of a futuristic Los Angeles in *Blade Runner*) „Japan is difficult visually“, he said, „awkward visually.“ He found Kyoto and Tokyo too „squeaky-clean“, and settled on Osaka – Japan’s third largest city – for its noir-ish vibe. Michael Douglas chose not to visit the country until casting sessions for the Japanese actors. „I wanted to see Japan with fresh eyes“, he said, „as the character does.“\n\nThe casting sessions certainly gave Douglas an insight into Conklin’s cultural confusion. Scott and company held auditions for all the Japanese roles, in keeping with standard Hollywood procedure. „In Japan, though“, said associate producer Alan Poul, „actors do not audition. The idea of putting yourself in a position that’s potentially humiliating is very disagreeable – and very alien to the Japanese experience. They spend their lives making each other’s lives easy – often that’s a priority over honesty, over frugality. …But here, we had within the space a few days many of the nation’s top actors coming in and out of the Imperial Hotel, which is the most prominently situated hotel in Tokyo.“\n\nFor actors like Takakura, a matinee idol considered the „Clint Eastwood of Japan“, it was the first of many humbling (or irritating) differences between two very different ways of doing things. „Each actor would arrive with his manager“, said Scott, „the manager being fairly angry at having to be there at all. But because we were so well promoted, they were torn between not coming at all and coming to see what was going on.“\n\nShooting lasted four months, and ultimately only six weeks of that was done in Japan. There simply wasn’t the structural support or protocol of shooting on location at the time, with Japan’s film industry still using mostly sets. Police were inexperienced with crowd control for filmed street scenes, and locals exhibited an image-consciousness that proved a road-block. „People thought that having their store or their house used as a place frequently by yakuza would reflect badly on them“, said Poul. „And when we wanted to play a row of shops in a fish market as someone’s apartment, we were told, ‚But people don’t really live here.‘“ And so, many of the Osaka scenes were shot in California: the nightclub set was constructed on the Paramount lot; Sugai’s grand house was actually in Los Feliz; the steel mill sequence began in Japan but, because it was illegal to use gunfire while the mill was in operation, was finished in Fontana; and Napa Valley stood in for Japanese farmland for the climactic shootout and motorcycle chase.\n\n„I’ve done a lot of physically demanding films“, Takakura told the *Los Angeles Times*, promoting the film. „I’ve been dragged to the South Pole and to the North Pole. I’ve had to climb glaciers and stand naked in sub-zero weather in Hokkaido, and I would say that making this film was just a tough, maybe even tougher, than any of them.“\n\n*Black Rain* was released in the U.S. on September 22, 1989, and grossed nearly $10 million in its opening weekend. It went on to make more than $134 million worldwide, and was nominated by the Academy for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing. Critics praised the film’s aesthetics, and many credited it for rising above the tropes of its genre. „*Black Rain* is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids“, wrote Rita Kempley for *The Washington Post*. „What raises the film above the herd“, Peter Travers wrote in *Rolling Stone*, „is the way Scott lets the traditions of a foreign land work changes on Conklin. …By refusing to beat its Eastern and Western protagonists into comic-book pulp, the movie pays them, and the audience, a rare compliment.“\n\n#### *Black Rain* Man\n\nHans Zimmer had just enjoyed his grand coming-out party as composer for the Oscar-sweeper *Rain Man*, and in short time his career and influence in film music went from simmering to ablaze. „I sat there watching… *Rain Man*“, said Ridley Scott, „and I became conscious of the score. It kind of felt bigger than it ought to be, and yet it worked. It was playing an internal world, yet it was a big track. I waited until the end and said, ‚Who’s that? Oh, Hans Zimmer. Who the hell’s that? I’ll call him up.’ I was impressed by the music, you know. As simple as that.“\n\nIt was an easy choice for the young Zimmer to hitch onto the acclaimed director’s wagon, and it would be the first of six films they worked on together. „We just started chatting“, said Zimmer. „I said to him, ‚So how do I not get fired off a Ridley Scott film?‘ And he said, ‚Well, don’t write me a symphony. Write something that’s appropriate for the movie.’ We started working right away, and we started coming up with some fairly unconventional ideas.“\n\n„Unconventional“ is a word Zimmer has often used for his work – not always to the liking of „conventional“ ears – but there is inarguably something brash and fresh about his music for this violent world of culture combustion in Osaka. „I was aware that not all scores had to be done orchestrally“, said the composer, „and that there was an interesting way to present a foreign culture to America, or to Europe, etc., by using some of the instruments from that culture. It’s so easy to go and steal all the clichés from a culture, and sort of string them together and go, ‚Hey, here it is!‘ as opposed just saying, ‚Okay, I’m just writing from my point of view, but I’m going to interpret it by musicians from that culture.‘“\n\n„There’s a very strong sense of percussion in Japanese culture, and because Ridley shot the film in very sort of modern way, and it was Osaka where he shot a lot of stuff, it’s very industrial. For all the percussive elements, I used synthesizers and electronics. Because I wanted it to be really hard. I wanted each percussion hit to be like a gunshot.“\n\nThe score was orchestrated and conducted by Shirley Walker, who had just conducted Danny Elfman’s *Batman*. It was Walker’s first project with Zimmer, and she conducted many of his early scores up through 1992’s *Toys*. They met at the time of Zimmer’s transition to L.A. from London, as they shared the same agent. „I had a lunch meeting with him and his partner and we all hit it off“, Walker recalled, „and we had a glorious span of projects there for quite a few years. Hans actually got me another feature, *Chicago Joe and the Showgirl* [1990], which again is a shared credit. It’s nothing he wrote a note of, but his contractual obligation was such that he kept his name on it.“ Walker’s own contribution to the *Black Rain* soundtrack is the lovely „Airplane Muzak“ source cue.\n\nThe score is a significant marker on the Zimmer timeline, and is a showcase of an emerging composer finding his voice and barreling down with a young man’s intensity. It is both a stylistic and thematic outgrowth of his score to *Rain Man* (with it’s „bigger“, pop-influenced synth approach), and a foundational work full of hints and patterns of trademarks he would use throughout his burgeoning career – even up to his most recent work. It’s also just a damn fun listen.\n\n#### Disc One\n\n**1. Sato Pt. 1 / One-Way Glass** \nThe first score cue in the film enters under the tense sequence that introduces Sato and the yakuza, and the music immediately throws us into a dark and oriental environment with colors of an ichigenkin (Japanese zither) and shakuhachi punctuating a brooding synthesizer intro. In the film the cue clashes with the Bobby Darin song „Beyond the Sea“ playing inside the deli, then replaces it. Sato isn’t given his own musical theme in *Black Rain*, per se (although the dark clouds of Osaka do prompt a recuring motif, heard first in this cue at 3:45). His menace is usually accompanied by these kinds of sinister native sounds, and his action by the percussive chaos that follows as Nick and Charlie chase Sato through the streets of New York and into a meat locker. A bedlam of Zimmer’s synth „gunshots“ is laced with sakuhachi, electric guitar, and other effects as Sato fights between swinging meat like a caged animal, before finally being overtaken. „One-Way-Glass“ crops up at the end of the following scene, as Sato makes threats to an invisible Conklin through the interrogation room mirror. Zimmer scores the scene with an ominous, throbbing synth effect, the trickling sound of a rainstick, and shakuhachi.\n\n**2. Osaka / Phony Cops** \nThe score truly announces itself during the dramatic flyover of Osaka, cast by Scott in a glow of orange and pink with smokestacks choking out billows of industrial exhaust. The Osaka theme opens with thundering beats, and is performed on a Japanese fue. Its oriental intervals thrust us into the foreign land, acknowledging the culture clash about to hit the fan – and its dark, foreboding tone prophesies violence. Nick and Charlie hand Sato over to Japanese authorities who enter the back of the plane, scored by pulsing clatter, bass, and fat synth surges.\n\n**3. You Gonna Be Nice? / Sato Pt. 2** \nThe accelerated heartbeat from the previous cue continues, unused in the film. After Nick and Charlie are assigned their (less-than thrilled) local guide, the music blasts them like a gunshot out onto the night streets of Osaka, sirens blaring. Accompanying them into the film’s central central nightclub, the score reflects the neon blue and elegant women populating the place. As Nick walks past a Japanese woman in a black sequin dress (Miyuki Ono), Zimmer introduces a motif that uses the first notes of the Dies Irae, a motif that is later developed into a full theme for Sugai and the crime world this woman represents – giving melodic shape to much of the score’s action. „Sato Pt. 2“ plays it cool as Nick lights up a cigarette and looks around the nightclub, watching the sequined woman being escorted out. Nick’s theme makes its first appearance here, strummed with bravado. While Nick pumps the helpfully omniscient Joyce for information about Sato and the yakuza, a measured statement of the Sugai theme plays over an exhaling synth pattern. Zimmer slowly begins to play with and develop one of the score’s catchiest ideas. „Who knows about this?“ Nick asks about the turf war he’s stumbled into, as the Osaka theme bubbles ominously in the low register. „Counting you and me?“ replies Joyce, „11 million“.\n\n**4. Sato Watching / Circling Motorbikes** \nFrom a window overlooking the street outside the nightclub, Sato eyes Nick and Charlie. Zimmer scores the villain’s menacing smile with a bending synth gesture. Percussion pounds as they become encircled by local bullies on motorcycles, the Osaka theme melodically connecting the explosive beats. Charlie expresses his reluctance to wade any further into this plot. „I can’t go back without him, Charlie“, Nick says – a lone ichigenkin sighing a fragment of Nick’s theme over a low bass line.\n\n**Sugai’s Photo / Sato Pt. 3** \nBack in the police office, Nick and Charlie are shown a photo of yakuza boss Sugai and filled in on the mob presence in Osaka. Zimmer underlines the threat with throbbing synth effects and a subtle statement of the Osaka theme. Charlie notices a team of armored police gathering outside the office, and Masa reluctantly tells them there is going to be a raid on Sato’s (supposed) last hideout. „Sato Pt. 3“ rumbles into active duty as the cops jump aboard the raid vehicle. The Osaka theme plays, full of testosterone, as the cops drive through the streets and then run through a casino. Rhythm fades to ambience inside the apartment, as Nick recognizes one of the phony cops from the airplane.\n\n**6. Sato Pt. 4** \nWaves of the chords from the nightclub scene slowly break while the cops search the hideout, and Zimmer imitates the atmospheric whirling of the (very Ridley Scott) fan in the wall. Droning synth and a shakuhachi accent the sight of Sato, who watches Nick and Charlie leaving from his motorcycle.\n\n**7. Charlie Losed His Head** \nAfter a couple of unscored scenes and the use of source songs (including a memorable karaoke rendition of „What’d I Say“), the film takes a dark turn when, walking home from the nightclub, Charlie does his characteristic torero move on a motorcyclist and is robbed of his jacket (and passport). Dissonance and sporadic drumming score Nick’s fear as he chases Charlie through a large indoor mall. A small Zimmer trademark appears here, one he has used in many dramatic scenes throughout his career: a series of half notes move stepwise, each punctuated by a blast of rapid sixteenth notes on the third beat. The score accelerates into mayhem, Nick watching helplessly through a gate as Charlie is surrounded by Sato and his thugs. A stream of primal, gunshot percussion underscores Sato, riding like a jouster towards Charlie and beheading him. The cue cuts to Nick on a bridge, dejected, with a long, high fue note. Gentle drops of the Sugai motif play as Joyce comes to comfort Nick. Nick drowns his sorrows and bemoans the tragedy („He was 28 years old“), underscored by a humbled rendition of Nick’s theme. Masa comes to visit the next morning, and explains the Japanese tradition of keeping one personal item from a deceased friend.\n\n„That scene was the key scene for me“, said Zimmer, „where everything changed for everybody. And a sense of intimacy had to creep in, and the bravura had to go out of the window. That’s really where I remember I spent forever in this little room with my synthesizers, just writing that scene, before there was any footage even. It was written quite apart from the movie. I remember seeing it on the film for the first time, and ‚Yeah, that works.‘ It was a cornerstone, that would allow me to go and make all this big racket everywhere else.“ A beautiful statement of Nick’s theme, which now begins to represent Nick and Masa’s friendship, is played on a panpipe (used often by Zimmer). The cue’s pulse quickens as Nick eyes Charlie’s gun. „I can take anything I want?“ he asks Masa. „Anything“, Masa replies. Back at Sato’s raided hideout, Nick unleashes his rage tearing up the apartment, searching for some clue.\n\nA variation on the Osaka melody slides over a rapid synth beats, then the cue climaxes with another Zimmer trademark – a relentless hammering of synth chords over a descending bass line, an escalating effect he has used from *Backdraft* to *The Dark Knight*.\n\n**8. Sequins** \nThe score hits its most fun stride as Nick, frustrated with not finding anything at the hideout, suddenly spots black sequins on the coffee table. A sexy version of the Sugai theme follows Nick and Masa as they spy the beautiful woman from the nightclub, Zimmer showing off his prowess hybridizing a pop sensibility with dramatic scoring. These stakeout and trailing scenes give him the opportunity to unleash an infectious energy, with syncopated rhythms and hip jamming on the keyboard. „Sometimes you gotta forget your head and grab your balls“, Nick tells a perplexed Masa, and this cue concurs.\n\n**9. Masa’s Reprimand / Sugai Pt. 1** \nThe dynamic begins to turn between Nick and Masa, and Zimmer scores the latter’s gentle lecture about integrity with a teary panpipe intro to Nick’s theme. The melody continues tenderly, backed by bongos, as the camera pans to Nick and Masa back at their stakeout. They see their woman emerge from the building, and an excited rhythm commences a virtuoso exploration of the Sugai theme. Zimmer’s knack for crafting a catchy, accelerating foot chase – a modern example would be „Mombasa“ from *Inception* – is on full display here, as he mounts anticipation with percussion and chord fragments before indulging in a pulsating statement of the melody. As Nick and Masa follow the woman to the point of „making the switch“, then pursue one of Sato’s henchmen to the steel mill, Zimmer develops the idea, creates tension with an interlude, then takes another step up with the theme. With Nick and Masa running out into a horde of khaki-dressed cyclists, a primitive, pounding ostinato is introduced, and the cue fades out as they enter the mill.\n\n**10. The Steel Mill** \nA largely atmospheric cue underscores the meeting between Sato and Sugai. Nick and Masa watch from a distance, molten steel bubbling around them. Zimmer’s cue blends with the humming and beeping ambience of the industrial setting, and punctuates the tense discussion held by the old oyabun and the impudent renegade.\n\n**11. Steel Mill Chase / Airplane / Escape** \nPercussion hits rattle while Nick pulls a gun on Sato and his men, inciting a scrap. Nick blows up a motorcycle and, like a good action hero, runs through the flames – the percussion and synth effects intensifying. Back on the streets, Zimmer scores the chase with a throttling rhythm over a deep bass line. Nick is held by the Japanese police as Sato gets away, and told he is getting on a plane back to America. A soldierly trumpet plays over Zimmer’s hammering synth chords, Masa looking on with regret. Nick’s theme plays on ichigenkin as he looks out the airplane window to see Charlie’s casket being loaded into the cargo hold. The cue’s heart rate quickens under Nick’s undaunted escape through the plane’s mechanized dumbwaiter, and the militaristic ostinato follows him off the tarmac and back to Masa’s apartment.\n\n**12. Sugai Pt. 2** \nWith help from Joyce, Nick approaches Sugai at his hangout on the third floor of a driving range. The Osaka theme is briefly stated, and the score turns uncomfortably menacing while Nick is held by his jacket with one foot off the platform. Plashing keyboard takes us outside Sugai’s house, where pouring rain accentuates the topic being discussed within. Music plays in a sinister mood under Nick and Sugai’s repartee by a roaring fireplace, the Osaka theme fluttering on a low panpipe. The theme slithers beneath Sugai’s monologue about the atom bomb and his aftermath, how it’s resulting black rain spawned a hatred of America and the creation of Sato. Nick makes a deal with Sugai to catch Sato, and a loud burst cuts to Nick being dropped off in the rolling farmlands later that night. He is given a rifle and a few rounds, and the Sugai motif flares as Nick cocks the gun. The primitive ostinato drives Nick thorugh the fields to his destination.\n\n**13. Arrival of Oyabuns / Sato’s Arrival / Meeting** \nA shakuhachi announces the arrival of the oyabuns at the farmhouse, and the Sugai motif tags along with Nick. A fue plays stormily while the men enter the house. Pounding percussion and synth chords arrive with Sato. Ichigenkin and fue face off during the edgy „Meeting“ inside, where Sato hands over his counterfeiting plate and is lectured by Sugai about responsibility. Low, monk-like voices hum after Sato submits to a very sharp and irreversible pinky swear. Percussion beats like a time bomb as Sato’s men, disguised as farmers, prepare for a skirmish.\n\n**14. Bikes / Fight / Nick and Masa** \nSato stabs Sugai’s hand, and a gunfight breaks out among the lackeys. The score kicks in when Sato, pursued by Nick, discovers some „Bikes“ – and the action-packed culmination of the film’s opening motorcycle scene is brought to bear. (The cue used in the film is actually the percussion-only alternate presented on disc two.) Zimmer supplies a badass heartbeat for the chase, here colored with wild electric guitar and fragments of the Sugai theme. When Nick trips up Sato’s bike in the mud, a fist „Fight“ ensures, and Zimmer brings back his rhythmic trademark within a tangle of synth racket. Nick gets the upper hand, twisting his opponent’s pinky stub and head-butting him, and an action-hero take on his theme surges on guitar. Witness here the very root of the Zimmer action sound that dominated the 1990s and changed an entire genre of movie music. The cue slows to a pregnant metrical pause, teasing out the question of whether Nick will impale a helpless Sato… and we jump cut to „Nick and Masa“ leading their prisoner into police headquarters. Nick’s theme surfaces, victorious, as the scene segues to a ceremony honoring the two cops. A galvanized version of the Osaka theme returns in this grand musical finale that is equal parts epic, 80s, and essential Zimmer. A throbbing interlude underscores Nick and Joyce’s wrap-up conversation and consummating kiss. At the airport Nick and Masa realize it’s time to say goodbye, and a friendship of percussion and Japanese instrumentation plays out as they give each other gifts. They shake hands like „good friends“ in Japan do, and the score climaxes with a salutary statement of the Osaka theme – and finishes off with a powerful electric guitar performance of Nick’s theme.\n\n#### Disc Two\n\n**Original EMI Album**\n\n**1. Living on the Edge of the Night** \nThe song plays early in the film, briefly, as Nick preps in the bathroom for his hearing.\n\n**2. The Way You Do the Things You Do** \nThis is heard on an aerial shot of Osaka, which cuts to the nightclub scene when, later, Charlie and Masa sing karaoke.\n\n**3. Back to Life (Jam on the Groove Mix)** \nThe song plays under a later nightclub scene when Nick asks Joyce where to find Sugai.\n\n**4. Laserman** \nWritten by Japanese film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (*The Last Emperor*), the song is heard as Nick watches Sugai leave the nightclub.\n\n**5. Singing in the Shower** \nThis plays in the nightclub immediately following „The Way You Do the Things You Do“.\n\n**6. I’ll Be Holding On** \nThis commercial album version, electric guitar-heavy, closes out the movie (as Nick gives Masa a farewell thumbs-up at the airport) and plays over the end credits.\n\n**7. *Black Rain* Suite: Sato** \nZimmer crafted four suites of his score for the original soundtrack album. This suite is comprised of the cues „Sato“ Pts. 1–4.\n\n**8. *Black Rain* Suite: Charlie Loses His Head** \nThis is the same as the „Charlie“ track on disc one, but with the added instrumentation heard in „Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)“, and without the unused passage of gentle high strings and keyboards and further panpipe statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**9. *Black Rain* Suite: Sugai** \nThis suite is comprised of „Sugai Pt. 1“ and the middle section (scoring the conversation at Sugai’s mansion) and end of „Sugai Pt. 2“ (when Nick is dropped off in the fields).\n\n**10. *Black Rain* Suite: Nick and Masa** \nThis suite is comprised of selections from the full „Nick and Masa“ cue.\n\n**Bonus Tracks**\n\n**11. Airplane Muzak (source)** \nWritten by orchestrator Shirley Walker, this source cue is heard in the background of the airplane scene after Nick and Charlie first arrive in Osaka.\n\n**12. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 1 (alternate percussion)** \nThis cue, for the actual trapping and beheading scene, has an added, relentless beating of gunshot percussion throughout.\n\n**13. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)** \nThis alternate passage would be heard from after Charlie’s death through the selecting of his possessions, with added koto embellishments.\n\n**14. Masa’s Reprimand (alternate)** \nHere, a cello line and repeating two-step synth line have been removed from the cue’s final statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**15. Bikes / Fight (alternate)** \nThis is the epic climax in a whole different guise – like an unabashed club dance track – and in it the seeds of Zimmer’s massively influential 90s action sound can be heard sprouting. The pounding ostinato is given a workout and expands tonally, leaping up to each new chord. Syncopated percussion gives the action cue a pop-influenced form, with more internal logic. Electric guitar is added with a more melodic function rather than just to provide the noise of chaos. Amped-up synth and electric guitar propel the Osaka melody, there are additional statements of Nick’s theme, and a straining, spiraling figuration that leads to what is essentially a bridge. The cue continues to rock out with hotshot electric guitar, and fades out on the note-climbing ostinato.\n\n**16. Bikes (percussion only)** \nThis is the cue used for the bike chase in the film, heard with the original overlaid music on disc one.\n\n**17. Charlie Loses His Head (monks wild)** \nThis track of bellowing, monk-line male vocals was superimposed over the beginning of the „Charlie“ cue in the film, and again when Charlie is stabbed by Sato – giving the dark event an even more nightmarish air. It’s used again after Nick and Sato’s bikes wreck in the mud, and they wrestle near the revving wheel.\n\n**18. I’ll Be Holding On (main title version)** \nDerived from Nick’s theme, Zimmer co-wrote the song with lyricist Will Jennings (who later penned a decent-sized hit for Celine Dion with „My Heart Will Go On“). This subtler keyboard version opens the film and introduces us to Nick, riding his motorcycle.\n\n*Tim Greiving writes for **Film Score Monthly Online**, and wrote these liner notes in London. He probably listened to „Sugai Pt. 1“ a billion times – not because he had to, but because it welcomely ate its way into his brain.*\n\n#### About this Release\n\nIt’s thrilling when one has the opportunity to work on a soundtrack that is not only from a Ridley Scott film, but is also one of Hans Zimmer’s earlier scores (and one of his self-admitted favorites).\n\nThe source material for *Black Rain* came from 2-track DATs from the Paramount archives, transferred by Johnny Dee Davis at Precision AudioSonics, then mastered by Doug Schwartz at Mulholland Music. Early on, it was decided that the first disc would present Hans Zimmer’s score and the second disc would re-issue the original Virgin Movie Music soundtrack album (remastered) along with whatever bonus material we could find worth including.\n\nThose bonus tracks would end up including the main title version of „I’ll Be Holding On“, a source cue by Shirley Walker, and my personal favorite, the unused alternate for „Bikes / Fight“ (Disc 2, Track 16), a shamelessly fun and enjoyable track that stands as a precursor to Zimmer’s 1990s „power anthem“ action style.\n\nI hope you find as much enjoyment in this expanded release of *Black Rain* as as I had in putting it together.\n\n*Dan Goldwasser \nProducer for La-La Land Records \nLos Angeles, August 2012*", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "22", "covers": [ "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture/cover/1.jpg", "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture/cover/2.jpg" ], "cover": "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture/cover/1.jpg", "works_id": [ "30" ], "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } ], "main_work": { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } } ], "main_recording": { "id": "65", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", "uri": "black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack", "label_id": "14", "release_date": "1989", "update": "1570025947", "notes_teaser": "", "notes_body": "", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "21", "covers": [ "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack/cover/1.jpg" ], "cover": "/assets/img/recordings/black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack/cover/1.jpg", "works_id": [ "30" ], "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } ], "main_work": { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1", "poster": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/poster/1.jpg", "empty_poster": false, "banner": "/assets/img/works/black_rain/banner.jpg", "empty_banner": false, "type": { "id": "1", "title": "Movie", "uri": "movie" }, "dir_label_adjective": "directed", "dir_label_adjective_suffix": "by", "dir_label_singular": "director", "dir_label_plural": "directors" } }, "writers_id": [ 1, "1" ], "writers_name": [ "Hans Zimmer", "Hans Zimmer" ], "writers": [ { "id": "1", "name": "Zimmer", "first_name": "Hans", "uri": "hans_zimmer", "banner": "https://hzdb.net/assets/img/persons/hans_zimmer/banner.png" }, { "id": "1", "name": "Zimmer", "first_name": "Hans", "uri": "hans_zimmer", "banner": "https://hzdb.net/assets/img/persons/hans_zimmer/banner.png" } ] }, "works": [ { "id": "30", "title": "Black Rain", "title_order": "Black Rain", "uri": "black_rain", "release_date": "622418400", "premiere_location": "", "type_id": "1", "direction_id": "1" } ], "recordings": [ { "id": "65", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", "uri": "black_rain_original_motion_picture_soundtrack", "label_id": "14", "release_date": "1989", "update": "1570025947", "notes_teaser": "", "notes_body": "", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "21" }, { "id": "114", "title": "Black Rain", "subtitle": "Music from the Motion Picture", "uri": "black_rain_music_from_the_motion_picture", "label_id": "33", "release_date": "2012", "update": "1583063165", "notes_teaser": "#### One big gray area\n\n*by Tim Greiving*\n\nNick Conkling has problems. Divorced, behind in his payments, under suspicion for graft, and working the streets of New York City („one big gray area“, as he describes it), the cop now has the Japanese mafia – the yakuza – to contend with. Lunching with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia) after a hearing with internal affairs, Nick (Michael Douglas) witnesses a brutal murder by Sato (Yûsaku Matsuda). The wild-eyed maniac is caught, but the Japanese want to deal with him themselves – and Nick and Charlie are tasked with transport and chaperone duties.", "notes_body": "Arriving in Osaka, the New York cops are outwitted and robbed of their catch, and suddenly they are embroiled in a wide-scale counterfeiting operation and bloody mob war in a very foreign country. There is a seismic clash of cultures and personalities, with local English-speaking cop Masahiro (Ken Takakura) assigned to inform (and babysit) his New York counterparts, especially the pugnacious Conklin. Sharp knives, steel mills, and motorcycle chases hurtle Nick and Masa into an unlikely friendship, and everyone who survives emerges a little wiser – Masa taking a cue from Nick’s balls-to-the-wall audacity, and Nick accepting lessons in humility and honor.\n\n*Black Rain* saw director Ridley Scott, who contributed *Alien* and *Blade Runner* to the canon of great cinema and went on an impressive genre-crawl during the 1980s, tackling yet another genre – this time the gritty cop thriller. The 1989 film is marked by its abundance: of great actors (American and Japanese), of high-stake chases, of moody visual atmosphere, of ramped-up culture shock, and of pure energy. The film begins with a shot of a free-roaming motorcycle, and it streaks through the streets of New York City to the alleyways of Osaka, hardly ever letting up on the gas.\n\nFueling the film is a badass Michael Douglas, a cynical cop who lets New York City ethics get into his lungs. As Nick, Douglas unloads a barrage of classic New York cop comebacks and zingers, defies other motorcyclists to race, holds his own with a handgun, and does his best to shake up the Japanese police system. Andy Garcia provides a gregarious social softener as Nick’s partner and buddy, translating his friend’s more colorful American colloquialisms, playing peacemaker in Japan, and even grandstanding at karaoke night.\n\nKen Takakura gives the strongest and most subtle performance as Masa, the principled Japanese cop who trades some Eastern wisdom for a little of Nick’s hellbent tenacity. Kate Capshaw has a small role as an extremely knowledgeable Chicagoan in the belly of Osaka. Yûsaku Matsuda, who who knew he had bladder cancer before accepting the part of Sato (though Ridley Scott did not), turned in his swan song performance as the uninhibitedly intense villain. Fully aware that such a physical role would only make his cancer worse, Matsuda – whose career in film and television began in the early 70s – considered it a worthy trade. He felt that being in the film would give him immortality. He died within weeks of the film’s release.\n\nIt was Michael Douglas who was first attracted to Craig Bolotin and Warren Lewis’ *Black Rain* screenplay. Douglas was hot off the success of Oliver Stone’s *Wall Street*, and wanted to play corruption in another key. He also had an eye on current events, and was interested in making something topical. „I felt there was something between us and Japan that was unresolved“, he said, „that was a mixture of hostility and admiration on both sides – really confused. It involves Japan’s cultural imitation of the United States, all of which is colored by lingering memories of World War II. …I thought that this particular picture, as a cop-action picture, could explore some of the differences in customs and behavior – explore some of the hostilities that our two cultures and societies have for each other.“\n\nRidley Scott was pursued to direct the film (rather than the other way around), and it presented a further step, after his thriller *Someone to Watch Over Me*, away from the big sci-fi and fantasy movies for which he was known. Scott, too, was fascinated by the tension between Japan and the U.S. „The way in is the conflict between police methods“, he explained. „Michael – as Conklin – is a New York homicide detective with a certain disgruntlement, a certain dissatisfaction with the system and a certain renegade quality. It’s even suggested that he’s on the take in a minor way. Ken [Takakura], on the other hand, is a thorough, by-the-book, hardline bureaucrat who is part of what seems to be this wonderful machine in Japan.“\n\n„Michael, I think“, he continued, „reestablishes some lost values in himself – traditional values, which somewhere along the line have been lost in the West but which I think still exist in Japan, such as a sense of honor and a sense of family – through his experience with this Japanese character. And Ken – who plays a kind of Japanese Everyman, the salaried man, the bourgeois, what we think of as an automaton – loses his rigidity and opens up through his contact with Michael and Andy Garcia. For Ken Takakura – both as a character and as an actor – to stand up and sing is an incredibly alien and even painful thing.“\n\nProduction on *Black Rain* was not without its problems, mirroring (and perhaps fueling) the hot culture clash in the story. Scott choose to shoot in Osaka because of its moody, industrial look (not far afield from his vision of a futuristic Los Angeles in *Blade Runner*) „Japan is difficult visually“, he said, „awkward visually.“ He found Kyoto and Tokyo too „squeaky-clean“, and settled on Osaka – Japan’s third largest city – for its noir-ish vibe. Michael Douglas chose not to visit the country until casting sessions for the Japanese actors. „I wanted to see Japan with fresh eyes“, he said, „as the character does.“\n\nThe casting sessions certainly gave Douglas an insight into Conklin’s cultural confusion. Scott and company held auditions for all the Japanese roles, in keeping with standard Hollywood procedure. „In Japan, though“, said associate producer Alan Poul, „actors do not audition. The idea of putting yourself in a position that’s potentially humiliating is very disagreeable – and very alien to the Japanese experience. They spend their lives making each other’s lives easy – often that’s a priority over honesty, over frugality. …But here, we had within the space a few days many of the nation’s top actors coming in and out of the Imperial Hotel, which is the most prominently situated hotel in Tokyo.“\n\nFor actors like Takakura, a matinee idol considered the „Clint Eastwood of Japan“, it was the first of many humbling (or irritating) differences between two very different ways of doing things. „Each actor would arrive with his manager“, said Scott, „the manager being fairly angry at having to be there at all. But because we were so well promoted, they were torn between not coming at all and coming to see what was going on.“\n\nShooting lasted four months, and ultimately only six weeks of that was done in Japan. There simply wasn’t the structural support or protocol of shooting on location at the time, with Japan’s film industry still using mostly sets. Police were inexperienced with crowd control for filmed street scenes, and locals exhibited an image-consciousness that proved a road-block. „People thought that having their store or their house used as a place frequently by yakuza would reflect badly on them“, said Poul. „And when we wanted to play a row of shops in a fish market as someone’s apartment, we were told, ‚But people don’t really live here.‘“ And so, many of the Osaka scenes were shot in California: the nightclub set was constructed on the Paramount lot; Sugai’s grand house was actually in Los Feliz; the steel mill sequence began in Japan but, because it was illegal to use gunfire while the mill was in operation, was finished in Fontana; and Napa Valley stood in for Japanese farmland for the climactic shootout and motorcycle chase.\n\n„I’ve done a lot of physically demanding films“, Takakura told the *Los Angeles Times*, promoting the film. „I’ve been dragged to the South Pole and to the North Pole. I’ve had to climb glaciers and stand naked in sub-zero weather in Hokkaido, and I would say that making this film was just a tough, maybe even tougher, than any of them.“\n\n*Black Rain* was released in the U.S. on September 22, 1989, and grossed nearly $10 million in its opening weekend. It went on to make more than $134 million worldwide, and was nominated by the Academy for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing. Critics praised the film’s aesthetics, and many credited it for rising above the tropes of its genre. „*Black Rain* is chock-full of moments, jazzy scenery and snazzy bits of dialogue, and stuffed with steroids“, wrote Rita Kempley for *The Washington Post*. „What raises the film above the herd“, Peter Travers wrote in *Rolling Stone*, „is the way Scott lets the traditions of a foreign land work changes on Conklin. …By refusing to beat its Eastern and Western protagonists into comic-book pulp, the movie pays them, and the audience, a rare compliment.“\n\n#### *Black Rain* Man\n\nHans Zimmer had just enjoyed his grand coming-out party as composer for the Oscar-sweeper *Rain Man*, and in short time his career and influence in film music went from simmering to ablaze. „I sat there watching… *Rain Man*“, said Ridley Scott, „and I became conscious of the score. It kind of felt bigger than it ought to be, and yet it worked. It was playing an internal world, yet it was a big track. I waited until the end and said, ‚Who’s that? Oh, Hans Zimmer. Who the hell’s that? I’ll call him up.’ I was impressed by the music, you know. As simple as that.“\n\nIt was an easy choice for the young Zimmer to hitch onto the acclaimed director’s wagon, and it would be the first of six films they worked on together. „We just started chatting“, said Zimmer. „I said to him, ‚So how do I not get fired off a Ridley Scott film?‘ And he said, ‚Well, don’t write me a symphony. Write something that’s appropriate for the movie.’ We started working right away, and we started coming up with some fairly unconventional ideas.“\n\n„Unconventional“ is a word Zimmer has often used for his work – not always to the liking of „conventional“ ears – but there is inarguably something brash and fresh about his music for this violent world of culture combustion in Osaka. „I was aware that not all scores had to be done orchestrally“, said the composer, „and that there was an interesting way to present a foreign culture to America, or to Europe, etc., by using some of the instruments from that culture. It’s so easy to go and steal all the clichés from a culture, and sort of string them together and go, ‚Hey, here it is!‘ as opposed just saying, ‚Okay, I’m just writing from my point of view, but I’m going to interpret it by musicians from that culture.‘“\n\n„There’s a very strong sense of percussion in Japanese culture, and because Ridley shot the film in very sort of modern way, and it was Osaka where he shot a lot of stuff, it’s very industrial. For all the percussive elements, I used synthesizers and electronics. Because I wanted it to be really hard. I wanted each percussion hit to be like a gunshot.“\n\nThe score was orchestrated and conducted by Shirley Walker, who had just conducted Danny Elfman’s *Batman*. It was Walker’s first project with Zimmer, and she conducted many of his early scores up through 1992’s *Toys*. They met at the time of Zimmer’s transition to L.A. from London, as they shared the same agent. „I had a lunch meeting with him and his partner and we all hit it off“, Walker recalled, „and we had a glorious span of projects there for quite a few years. Hans actually got me another feature, *Chicago Joe and the Showgirl* [1990], which again is a shared credit. It’s nothing he wrote a note of, but his contractual obligation was such that he kept his name on it.“ Walker’s own contribution to the *Black Rain* soundtrack is the lovely „Airplane Muzak“ source cue.\n\nThe score is a significant marker on the Zimmer timeline, and is a showcase of an emerging composer finding his voice and barreling down with a young man’s intensity. It is both a stylistic and thematic outgrowth of his score to *Rain Man* (with it’s „bigger“, pop-influenced synth approach), and a foundational work full of hints and patterns of trademarks he would use throughout his burgeoning career – even up to his most recent work. It’s also just a damn fun listen.\n\n#### Disc One\n\n**1. Sato Pt. 1 / One-Way Glass** \nThe first score cue in the film enters under the tense sequence that introduces Sato and the yakuza, and the music immediately throws us into a dark and oriental environment with colors of an ichigenkin (Japanese zither) and shakuhachi punctuating a brooding synthesizer intro. In the film the cue clashes with the Bobby Darin song „Beyond the Sea“ playing inside the deli, then replaces it. Sato isn’t given his own musical theme in *Black Rain*, per se (although the dark clouds of Osaka do prompt a recuring motif, heard first in this cue at 3:45). His menace is usually accompanied by these kinds of sinister native sounds, and his action by the percussive chaos that follows as Nick and Charlie chase Sato through the streets of New York and into a meat locker. A bedlam of Zimmer’s synth „gunshots“ is laced with sakuhachi, electric guitar, and other effects as Sato fights between swinging meat like a caged animal, before finally being overtaken. „One-Way-Glass“ crops up at the end of the following scene, as Sato makes threats to an invisible Conklin through the interrogation room mirror. Zimmer scores the scene with an ominous, throbbing synth effect, the trickling sound of a rainstick, and shakuhachi.\n\n**2. Osaka / Phony Cops** \nThe score truly announces itself during the dramatic flyover of Osaka, cast by Scott in a glow of orange and pink with smokestacks choking out billows of industrial exhaust. The Osaka theme opens with thundering beats, and is performed on a Japanese fue. Its oriental intervals thrust us into the foreign land, acknowledging the culture clash about to hit the fan – and its dark, foreboding tone prophesies violence. Nick and Charlie hand Sato over to Japanese authorities who enter the back of the plane, scored by pulsing clatter, bass, and fat synth surges.\n\n**3. You Gonna Be Nice? / Sato Pt. 2** \nThe accelerated heartbeat from the previous cue continues, unused in the film. After Nick and Charlie are assigned their (less-than thrilled) local guide, the music blasts them like a gunshot out onto the night streets of Osaka, sirens blaring. Accompanying them into the film’s central central nightclub, the score reflects the neon blue and elegant women populating the place. As Nick walks past a Japanese woman in a black sequin dress (Miyuki Ono), Zimmer introduces a motif that uses the first notes of the Dies Irae, a motif that is later developed into a full theme for Sugai and the crime world this woman represents – giving melodic shape to much of the score’s action. „Sato Pt. 2“ plays it cool as Nick lights up a cigarette and looks around the nightclub, watching the sequined woman being escorted out. Nick’s theme makes its first appearance here, strummed with bravado. While Nick pumps the helpfully omniscient Joyce for information about Sato and the yakuza, a measured statement of the Sugai theme plays over an exhaling synth pattern. Zimmer slowly begins to play with and develop one of the score’s catchiest ideas. „Who knows about this?“ Nick asks about the turf war he’s stumbled into, as the Osaka theme bubbles ominously in the low register. „Counting you and me?“ replies Joyce, „11 million“.\n\n**4. Sato Watching / Circling Motorbikes** \nFrom a window overlooking the street outside the nightclub, Sato eyes Nick and Charlie. Zimmer scores the villain’s menacing smile with a bending synth gesture. Percussion pounds as they become encircled by local bullies on motorcycles, the Osaka theme melodically connecting the explosive beats. Charlie expresses his reluctance to wade any further into this plot. „I can’t go back without him, Charlie“, Nick says – a lone ichigenkin sighing a fragment of Nick’s theme over a low bass line.\n\n**Sugai’s Photo / Sato Pt. 3** \nBack in the police office, Nick and Charlie are shown a photo of yakuza boss Sugai and filled in on the mob presence in Osaka. Zimmer underlines the threat with throbbing synth effects and a subtle statement of the Osaka theme. Charlie notices a team of armored police gathering outside the office, and Masa reluctantly tells them there is going to be a raid on Sato’s (supposed) last hideout. „Sato Pt. 3“ rumbles into active duty as the cops jump aboard the raid vehicle. The Osaka theme plays, full of testosterone, as the cops drive through the streets and then run through a casino. Rhythm fades to ambience inside the apartment, as Nick recognizes one of the phony cops from the airplane.\n\n**6. Sato Pt. 4** \nWaves of the chords from the nightclub scene slowly break while the cops search the hideout, and Zimmer imitates the atmospheric whirling of the (very Ridley Scott) fan in the wall. Droning synth and a shakuhachi accent the sight of Sato, who watches Nick and Charlie leaving from his motorcycle.\n\n**7. Charlie Losed His Head** \nAfter a couple of unscored scenes and the use of source songs (including a memorable karaoke rendition of „What’d I Say“), the film takes a dark turn when, walking home from the nightclub, Charlie does his characteristic torero move on a motorcyclist and is robbed of his jacket (and passport). Dissonance and sporadic drumming score Nick’s fear as he chases Charlie through a large indoor mall. A small Zimmer trademark appears here, one he has used in many dramatic scenes throughout his career: a series of half notes move stepwise, each punctuated by a blast of rapid sixteenth notes on the third beat. The score accelerates into mayhem, Nick watching helplessly through a gate as Charlie is surrounded by Sato and his thugs. A stream of primal, gunshot percussion underscores Sato, riding like a jouster towards Charlie and beheading him. The cue cuts to Nick on a bridge, dejected, with a long, high fue note. Gentle drops of the Sugai motif play as Joyce comes to comfort Nick. Nick drowns his sorrows and bemoans the tragedy („He was 28 years old“), underscored by a humbled rendition of Nick’s theme. Masa comes to visit the next morning, and explains the Japanese tradition of keeping one personal item from a deceased friend.\n\n„That scene was the key scene for me“, said Zimmer, „where everything changed for everybody. And a sense of intimacy had to creep in, and the bravura had to go out of the window. That’s really where I remember I spent forever in this little room with my synthesizers, just writing that scene, before there was any footage even. It was written quite apart from the movie. I remember seeing it on the film for the first time, and ‚Yeah, that works.‘ It was a cornerstone, that would allow me to go and make all this big racket everywhere else.“ A beautiful statement of Nick’s theme, which now begins to represent Nick and Masa’s friendship, is played on a panpipe (used often by Zimmer). The cue’s pulse quickens as Nick eyes Charlie’s gun. „I can take anything I want?“ he asks Masa. „Anything“, Masa replies. Back at Sato’s raided hideout, Nick unleashes his rage tearing up the apartment, searching for some clue.\n\nA variation on the Osaka melody slides over a rapid synth beats, then the cue climaxes with another Zimmer trademark – a relentless hammering of synth chords over a descending bass line, an escalating effect he has used from *Backdraft* to *The Dark Knight*.\n\n**8. Sequins** \nThe score hits its most fun stride as Nick, frustrated with not finding anything at the hideout, suddenly spots black sequins on the coffee table. A sexy version of the Sugai theme follows Nick and Masa as they spy the beautiful woman from the nightclub, Zimmer showing off his prowess hybridizing a pop sensibility with dramatic scoring. These stakeout and trailing scenes give him the opportunity to unleash an infectious energy, with syncopated rhythms and hip jamming on the keyboard. „Sometimes you gotta forget your head and grab your balls“, Nick tells a perplexed Masa, and this cue concurs.\n\n**9. Masa’s Reprimand / Sugai Pt. 1** \nThe dynamic begins to turn between Nick and Masa, and Zimmer scores the latter’s gentle lecture about integrity with a teary panpipe intro to Nick’s theme. The melody continues tenderly, backed by bongos, as the camera pans to Nick and Masa back at their stakeout. They see their woman emerge from the building, and an excited rhythm commences a virtuoso exploration of the Sugai theme. Zimmer’s knack for crafting a catchy, accelerating foot chase – a modern example would be „Mombasa“ from *Inception* – is on full display here, as he mounts anticipation with percussion and chord fragments before indulging in a pulsating statement of the melody. As Nick and Masa follow the woman to the point of „making the switch“, then pursue one of Sato’s henchmen to the steel mill, Zimmer develops the idea, creates tension with an interlude, then takes another step up with the theme. With Nick and Masa running out into a horde of khaki-dressed cyclists, a primitive, pounding ostinato is introduced, and the cue fades out as they enter the mill.\n\n**10. The Steel Mill** \nA largely atmospheric cue underscores the meeting between Sato and Sugai. Nick and Masa watch from a distance, molten steel bubbling around them. Zimmer’s cue blends with the humming and beeping ambience of the industrial setting, and punctuates the tense discussion held by the old oyabun and the impudent renegade.\n\n**11. Steel Mill Chase / Airplane / Escape** \nPercussion hits rattle while Nick pulls a gun on Sato and his men, inciting a scrap. Nick blows up a motorcycle and, like a good action hero, runs through the flames – the percussion and synth effects intensifying. Back on the streets, Zimmer scores the chase with a throttling rhythm over a deep bass line. Nick is held by the Japanese police as Sato gets away, and told he is getting on a plane back to America. A soldierly trumpet plays over Zimmer’s hammering synth chords, Masa looking on with regret. Nick’s theme plays on ichigenkin as he looks out the airplane window to see Charlie’s casket being loaded into the cargo hold. The cue’s heart rate quickens under Nick’s undaunted escape through the plane’s mechanized dumbwaiter, and the militaristic ostinato follows him off the tarmac and back to Masa’s apartment.\n\n**12. Sugai Pt. 2** \nWith help from Joyce, Nick approaches Sugai at his hangout on the third floor of a driving range. The Osaka theme is briefly stated, and the score turns uncomfortably menacing while Nick is held by his jacket with one foot off the platform. Plashing keyboard takes us outside Sugai’s house, where pouring rain accentuates the topic being discussed within. Music plays in a sinister mood under Nick and Sugai’s repartee by a roaring fireplace, the Osaka theme fluttering on a low panpipe. The theme slithers beneath Sugai’s monologue about the atom bomb and his aftermath, how it’s resulting black rain spawned a hatred of America and the creation of Sato. Nick makes a deal with Sugai to catch Sato, and a loud burst cuts to Nick being dropped off in the rolling farmlands later that night. He is given a rifle and a few rounds, and the Sugai motif flares as Nick cocks the gun. The primitive ostinato drives Nick thorugh the fields to his destination.\n\n**13. Arrival of Oyabuns / Sato’s Arrival / Meeting** \nA shakuhachi announces the arrival of the oyabuns at the farmhouse, and the Sugai motif tags along with Nick. A fue plays stormily while the men enter the house. Pounding percussion and synth chords arrive with Sato. Ichigenkin and fue face off during the edgy „Meeting“ inside, where Sato hands over his counterfeiting plate and is lectured by Sugai about responsibility. Low, monk-like voices hum after Sato submits to a very sharp and irreversible pinky swear. Percussion beats like a time bomb as Sato’s men, disguised as farmers, prepare for a skirmish.\n\n**14. Bikes / Fight / Nick and Masa** \nSato stabs Sugai’s hand, and a gunfight breaks out among the lackeys. The score kicks in when Sato, pursued by Nick, discovers some „Bikes“ – and the action-packed culmination of the film’s opening motorcycle scene is brought to bear. (The cue used in the film is actually the percussion-only alternate presented on disc two.) Zimmer supplies a badass heartbeat for the chase, here colored with wild electric guitar and fragments of the Sugai theme. When Nick trips up Sato’s bike in the mud, a fist „Fight“ ensures, and Zimmer brings back his rhythmic trademark within a tangle of synth racket. Nick gets the upper hand, twisting his opponent’s pinky stub and head-butting him, and an action-hero take on his theme surges on guitar. Witness here the very root of the Zimmer action sound that dominated the 1990s and changed an entire genre of movie music. The cue slows to a pregnant metrical pause, teasing out the question of whether Nick will impale a helpless Sato… and we jump cut to „Nick and Masa“ leading their prisoner into police headquarters. Nick’s theme surfaces, victorious, as the scene segues to a ceremony honoring the two cops. A galvanized version of the Osaka theme returns in this grand musical finale that is equal parts epic, 80s, and essential Zimmer. A throbbing interlude underscores Nick and Joyce’s wrap-up conversation and consummating kiss. At the airport Nick and Masa realize it’s time to say goodbye, and a friendship of percussion and Japanese instrumentation plays out as they give each other gifts. They shake hands like „good friends“ in Japan do, and the score climaxes with a salutary statement of the Osaka theme – and finishes off with a powerful electric guitar performance of Nick’s theme.\n\n#### Disc Two\n\n**Original EMI Album**\n\n**1. Living on the Edge of the Night** \nThe song plays early in the film, briefly, as Nick preps in the bathroom for his hearing.\n\n**2. The Way You Do the Things You Do** \nThis is heard on an aerial shot of Osaka, which cuts to the nightclub scene when, later, Charlie and Masa sing karaoke.\n\n**3. Back to Life (Jam on the Groove Mix)** \nThe song plays under a later nightclub scene when Nick asks Joyce where to find Sugai.\n\n**4. Laserman** \nWritten by Japanese film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (*The Last Emperor*), the song is heard as Nick watches Sugai leave the nightclub.\n\n**5. Singing in the Shower** \nThis plays in the nightclub immediately following „The Way You Do the Things You Do“.\n\n**6. I’ll Be Holding On** \nThis commercial album version, electric guitar-heavy, closes out the movie (as Nick gives Masa a farewell thumbs-up at the airport) and plays over the end credits.\n\n**7. *Black Rain* Suite: Sato** \nZimmer crafted four suites of his score for the original soundtrack album. This suite is comprised of the cues „Sato“ Pts. 1–4.\n\n**8. *Black Rain* Suite: Charlie Loses His Head** \nThis is the same as the „Charlie“ track on disc one, but with the added instrumentation heard in „Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)“, and without the unused passage of gentle high strings and keyboards and further panpipe statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**9. *Black Rain* Suite: Sugai** \nThis suite is comprised of „Sugai Pt. 1“ and the middle section (scoring the conversation at Sugai’s mansion) and end of „Sugai Pt. 2“ (when Nick is dropped off in the fields).\n\n**10. *Black Rain* Suite: Nick and Masa** \nThis suite is comprised of selections from the full „Nick and Masa“ cue.\n\n**Bonus Tracks**\n\n**11. Airplane Muzak (source)** \nWritten by orchestrator Shirley Walker, this source cue is heard in the background of the airplane scene after Nick and Charlie first arrive in Osaka.\n\n**12. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 1 (alternate percussion)** \nThis cue, for the actual trapping and beheading scene, has an added, relentless beating of gunshot percussion throughout.\n\n**13. Charlie Loses His Head Pt. 2 (alternate with koto and oboe)** \nThis alternate passage would be heard from after Charlie’s death through the selecting of his possessions, with added koto embellishments.\n\n**14. Masa’s Reprimand (alternate)** \nHere, a cello line and repeating two-step synth line have been removed from the cue’s final statement of Nick’s theme.\n\n**15. Bikes / Fight (alternate)** \nThis is the epic climax in a whole different guise – like an unabashed club dance track – and in it the seeds of Zimmer’s massively influential 90s action sound can be heard sprouting. The pounding ostinato is given a workout and expands tonally, leaping up to each new chord. Syncopated percussion gives the action cue a pop-influenced form, with more internal logic. Electric guitar is added with a more melodic function rather than just to provide the noise of chaos. Amped-up synth and electric guitar propel the Osaka melody, there are additional statements of Nick’s theme, and a straining, spiraling figuration that leads to what is essentially a bridge. The cue continues to rock out with hotshot electric guitar, and fades out on the note-climbing ostinato.\n\n**16. Bikes (percussion only)** \nThis is the cue used for the bike chase in the film, heard with the original overlaid music on disc one.\n\n**17. Charlie Loses His Head (monks wild)** \nThis track of bellowing, monk-line male vocals was superimposed over the beginning of the „Charlie“ cue in the film, and again when Charlie is stabbed by Sato – giving the dark event an even more nightmarish air. It’s used again after Nick and Sato’s bikes wreck in the mud, and they wrestle near the revving wheel.\n\n**18. I’ll Be Holding On (main title version)** \nDerived from Nick’s theme, Zimmer co-wrote the song with lyricist Will Jennings (who later penned a decent-sized hit for Celine Dion with „My Heart Will Go On“). This subtler keyboard version opens the film and introduces us to Nick, riding his motorcycle.\n\n*Tim Greiving writes for **Film Score Monthly Online**, and wrote these liner notes in London. He probably listened to „Sugai Pt. 1“ a billion times – not because he had to, but because it welcomely ate its way into his brain.*\n\n#### About this Release\n\nIt’s thrilling when one has the opportunity to work on a soundtrack that is not only from a Ridley Scott film, but is also one of Hans Zimmer’s earlier scores (and one of his self-admitted favorites).\n\nThe source material for *Black Rain* came from 2-track DATs from the Paramount archives, transferred by Johnny Dee Davis at Precision AudioSonics, then mastered by Doug Schwartz at Mulholland Music. Early on, it was decided that the first disc would present Hans Zimmer’s score and the second disc would re-issue the original Virgin Movie Music soundtrack album (remastered) along with whatever bonus material we could find worth including.\n\nThose bonus tracks would end up including the main title version of „I’ll Be Holding On“, a source cue by Shirley Walker, and my personal favorite, the unused alternate for „Bikes / Fight“ (Disc 2, Track 16), a shamelessly fun and enjoyable track that stands as a precursor to Zimmer’s 1990s „power anthem“ action style.\n\nI hope you find as much enjoyment in this expanded release of *Black Rain* as as I had in putting it together.\n\n*Dan Goldwasser \nProducer for La-La Land Records \nLos Angeles, August 2012*", "comment": "", "file_artwork": "22" } ], "origins": [], "writers": [ { "id": "2417", "name": "Zimmer", "first_name": "Hans", "uri": "hans_zimmer", "track_id": "880", "person_id": "1", "order": "0" } ], "performers": [], "recordingModel": { "pager": null }, "memberModel": { "pager": null }, "page": "Nick and Masa", "nav": "", "js": [ "_inc/playlists-js" ] } ] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/system/CodeIgniter.php", "line": 933, "function": "_remap", "class": "App\\Controllers\\Track", "type": "->", "args": [ "880" ] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/system/CodeIgniter.php", "line": 499, "function": "runController", "class": "CodeIgniter\\CodeIgniter", "type": "->", "args": [ { "session": {}, "config": { "member_colors": [ "8a63fc", "355cff", "4fc470", "c4b45a", "33b8b2", "b8e556", "f2ac1a", "f27438", "f2544f", "f270ac", "f2b982", "3017f2", "f2695e", "95abf2", "000000", "f2edda" ] }, "basicModel": { "pager": null }, "workModel": { "pager": null }, "recordingModel": { "pager": null }, "personModel": { "pager": null }, "memberModel": { "pager": null } } ] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/system/CodeIgniter.php", "line": 368, "function": "handleRequest", "class": "CodeIgniter\\CodeIgniter", "type": "->", "args": [ null, { "handler": "file", "backupHandler": "dummy", "storePath": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/writable/cache/", "cacheQueryString": false, "prefix": "", "ttl": 60, "reservedCharacters": "{}()/\\@:", "file": { "storePath": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/writable/cache/", "mode": 416 }, "memcached": { "host": "127.0.0.1", "port": 11211, "weight": 1, "raw": false }, "redis": { "host": "127.0.0.1", "password": null, "port": 6379, "timeout": 0, "database": 0 }, "validHandlers": { "dummy": "CodeIgniter\\Cache\\Handlers\\DummyHandler", "file": "CodeIgniter\\Cache\\Handlers\\FileHandler", "memcached": "CodeIgniter\\Cache\\Handlers\\MemcachedHandler", "predis": "CodeIgniter\\Cache\\Handlers\\PredisHandler", "redis": "CodeIgniter\\Cache\\Handlers\\RedisHandler", "wincache": "CodeIgniter\\Cache\\Handlers\\WincacheHandler" } }, false ] }, { "file": "/home/bastista/public_html/hzdb/public/index.php", "line": 67, "function": "run", "class": "CodeIgniter\\CodeIgniter", "type": "->", "args": [] } ] }