I'm not sure which draft this is exactly - I'll assume it was the Schrader one that sold for a lot of money and not the Robert Towne rewritten one.
Some of the writing is clunky - the dialogue isn't that great, there's lots of descriptions (everyone's clothes are described), there's some dodgy voice over explaining things.
But it's a good story full of classical tropes - the private eye asked to come back to help out a friend, the missing girl a la The Searchers, the old Yakuza dude who comes out of retirement.
Really the film is as much Tanaka Ken's movie as Harry the American hero. It's a buddy movie about two dudes in love with each other - the girl in the film, Harry's ex, is really a beard. She has no personality just a kid as stakes.
In this version Hanako the daughter lives - apparently in the film she's killed. The death toll is very high. It's a good action film with lots of honour and the Japanese stuff gives it freshness even now.
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