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Pale Flower (乾いた花, Kawaita hana) is a 1964 Japanese film noir directed by Masahiro Shinoda. The film is about Muraki (Ryō Ikebe) a Yakuza hitman just released from prison. At an illegal gambling parlor, he finds himself drawn to a mysterious young woman named Saeko (Mariko Kaga). Though Saeko loses large sums of money, she asks Muraki to find games with larger and larger stakes. The two become involved in an intense mutually destructive relationship.[1] Film critic Roger Ebert gave Pale Flower four stars and put it on his list of Great Movies.[2]

Pale Flower
Directed by	Masahiro Shinoda
Written by	Masaru Baba Masahiro Shinoda
Story by	Shintaro Ishihara
Produced by	Masao Shirai Shigeru Wakatsuki
Starring	Ryō Ikebe Mariko Kaga Isao Sasaki Takashi Fujiki Chisako Hara
Cinematography	Masao Kosugi
Edited by	Yoshi Sugihara
Music by	Toru Takemitsu
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date	1964 (1964)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Plot

Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was jailed. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to self-destruction.

Production

Director Shinoda was influenced by Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal while making the film.[3] Shinoda chose the subject of yakuza as he felt the yakuza world is the only place where a Japanese ceremonial structure is sustained.[4]

Release

When screenwriter Masaru Baba saw Shinoda's film focus on visual and sound, he complained to the managers at the company Shochiku. This led to a nine-month delay of the film's release.[4]

Home video

Homevision released a Region 1 DVD of Pale Flower on November 18, 2003.[5] The Criterion Collection released a DVD and Blu-ray edition of the film that features a video interview with Masahiro Shinoda as well as commentary by film scholar Peter Grilli.[6]

Legacy

In 2012, filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia included the film in his personal top ten (for The Sight & Sound Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time poll), writing: "Why can’t all film noir be like Pale Flower?"[7]

References

Bibliography

• Richie, Donald; Paul Schrader (2005). A hundred years of Japanese film: a concise history, with a selective guide to DVDs and videos. Kodansha International. ISBN 4-7700-2995-0.

External links

• Pale Flower at IMDb
• Pale Flower: Loser Take All an essay by Chuck Stephens at the Criterion Collection

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