Pale Flower

Director: Masashiro Shinoda

1964 / 96min / 35mm

Fresh out of prison, world-weary Yakuza hitman Ryō Ikebe finds himself a new pair of shackles in the person of Mariko Kaga, an enigmatic young thrill-seeker with a passion for high stakes gambling who draws him into her spiral of self-destruction. A high-style dive into underworld lowlife distinguished by its bravura camerawork and the hectic rhythms of Tōru Takemitsu’s soundtrack, no less a personage than Michael Mann has placed Pale Flower on his personal list of the ten greatest films of all time.