Proprio come un William Powell

“Proprio come un William Powell” is the title of the song Takeshi Fumimota sings as he edges toward DL in a courtyard where the kunoichi are ready to shoot. The performance makes romantic yearning sound at once ridiculous and perilous: Takeshi sings of an unattainable ideal even as he approaches the woman who, he remembers, killed him the day before.

The Song and Its Images

The song builds its refrain from comic comparisons for something essential missing: laying bricks without a trowel, or holding a luau without fish or poi. Takeshi then laments that he will never find the real McCoy, only another William Powell seeking his Myrna Loy. The title’s reference to Powell, paired with Myrna Loy, gives the song the shape of a longing for an ideal counterpart; its extravagant romantic pose sits oddly beside the immediate danger around him.

The Performance in the Courtyard

Takeshi first tries to defuse the standoff by announcing that he is already dead. Under the kunoichi’s watch and amid the threat of Uzi fire, he takes an ukulele from his bag, plays an introduction to show that he is harmless, and begins to sing. As the song continues, he moves crablike toward DL. His performance is therefore also an approach: the serenade supplies cover for closing the distance, while the possibility that the women disagree about whether to kill him gives him a narrow opening.

Desire Entangled with Danger

DL watches with a mixture of amusement and disgust. Seeing Takeshi’s face emerge before her recalls their collision in Tokyo and his continuing desire for her, though she cannot make sense of the sexual motives that drive him. The song’s pursuit of a Myrna Loy thus becomes more than a comic flourish: it accompanies an actual pursuit in which attraction, absurdity, and the memory of violence remain inseparable. DL’s response is to treat his behavior as madness, leaving the serenade unresolved rather than turning it into a declaration of mutual romance.