Mopkin TheHopkin "Pale Flower" is directed by Masahiro Shinoda, and stars Ryo Ikebe as a slick yakuza recently released from a prison stint for murder. He meets Saeko (Mariko Kaga), a young women who seeks thrill and excitement. The two fall for each other, and navigate the dark nights of Tokyo looking for big gambling and excitement.This was a very stylish yakuza film-noir. It has colour and flare in droves, and is well shot and directed. The film oozes charm, as the two brave gambling dens, yakuza fronts and race along Tokyo highways at 2am. It is a story about two individuals who share the same disassociation with society, and feel nothing about life. They struggle to find meaning and enjoyment during the day, but fill their nights with sex, gambling, crime and drugs in order to make it. I really loved this movie. It kept me gripped for most of the film, even though little in the way of action occurs. This film instead keeps you focused on Muraki and Saeko as they struggle through the underworld together.I loved this film and highly recommend it. 9/10

mevmijaumau Masahiro Shinoda's dark yakuza neo-noir film Pale Flower (or Dry Flower) was based on Shintaro Ishihara's novel and got shelved by the studio for nine months after it was made. Not only was the screenwriter Masaru Baba complaining that Shinoda focused too much on the visuals and too little on the dialogues, but apparently studio executives didn't like the idea of a movie going so much in detail of gambling in mob circuits. The film stars Ryo Ikebe as Muraki, a stone-faced precursor to Takeshi Kitano's enigmatic yakuza characters, and Mariko Kaga, one of the jewels of '60s Japanese cinema, as Saeko, a bored lady seeking thrills, on a self-destructive path. They're pretty much the only two characters in the story that truly matter, aside from a mysterious dope-addicted mobster Yoh who proves to be a bad influence for Saeko as he destroys her and Muraki's platonic relationship without ever uttering a single word in the film. Muraki tries to win Saeko over by offering her quick adrenaline rushes, but Yoh effortlessly outdoes him each time, first by heroin, and then by something much more sinister... Needles and knives are famously exhibited as phallic objects in the movie.Blessed with the dissonant score by Toru Takemitsu, who mixes non- diagetic sounds with the wooden cards clicking and clacking against each other in the gambling den, and painted in wonderful, all-encompassing black tones, Shinoda's movie may annoy some viewers with its slow pace, but it's ultimately worth it. Shinoda was inspired by Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil while working on the film, and indeed, the theme of a dark world semi-illuminated by an unreachable ideal of beauty is what links the two works together.

jgcole Upon his release from prison for killing a rival mobster, Muraki strolls the streets of Tokyo and muses that nothing has changed in three years and that people are little more than half dead stupid animals whose lives are meaningless. In voice-over he asks "What was so wrong with killing one of them?" While he was away the two Tokyo gangs have reached a truce in order to eliminate a third gang from Osaka. Muraki is unsure of his role in the new alliance and places little value in the yakuza (gangster) code. He is a lone wolf who, while a dependable team player, is a risk taker who takes action on his own and finds consolation from his weary existence in the Tokyo nights and its' gambling dens. Saeko is a well dressed, beautiful young woman with lots of cash and, like Muraki, is a creature of the night. They meet at a card game where Saeko recklessly wagers, loses and wants more. A woman in such a place is an oddity and all the players are fascinated by her, including Muraki. When she asks Muraki if he knows of a game where the stakes are higher he knows that he has found what he was looking for. The two are immediately drawn to one another and their fates are sealed. Together they combat the boredom of life with high stakes gambling, high speed joy rides (she drives) and other thrills that come with living on the edge. They agree that whatever they do, they can forgive themselves. "I have no use for the dawn. I adore these evil nights," says Saeko. A truer noir couple there never was. But when Saeko becomes drawn to another mid level yakuza – the half-Chinese junkie Yoh - Muraki feels a sense of loss. To win her back he asks Saeko if she wants to watch him as he assassinates the head of the Osaka syndicate. She cannot say no and he knows it. While it is not a typical yakuza film as there is little bloodshed and killing, it is a gritty portrait of yakuza life: gambling dens, night clubs, racetracks and doing things they have to do and feeling good about it. It is their life and it is unquestioned. It is this that the film is really about: fate and the impending doom that hangs over all of the characters. It reflects the end of the old Japanese tradition of honor and obedience to a patriarchal system that was in disarray after their defeat in WWII and the occupation that followed. The American film noir existentialism and stunning expressionist photography in monochrome Cinemascope create a film experience that is the equal of anything that came out of Europe and the U.S. Even the card game scenes, a game called hana fuda with a deck that has twelve suits all named after flowers, have an intensity that is very noir. There is also a bizarre dream sequence that adds to the stylized strangeness of the film as does the avant garde soundtrack by Toru Takemitsu. The strange and confusing percussion and brass of Takemitsu's score somehow seems in perfect sync with what we are seeing on the screen. This is a complete film experience.

Akahige Whereas "Blue Velvet" is about the lengths that people go to for sexual gratification, "Pale Flower" is about that lengths that people go to for a few "kicks," kind of like a Japanese gangster adaptation of Kerouac's "On the Road."Upon attempting to release "Pale Flower," the studio's censor banned the film, and this fact says quite a bit about the temperature of Post-War Japan's pop culture, and the target audience of this film. While the director claims the film is about Japan's uncertain stance in the Cold War, it may be more accurate to say that the film is about Shinoda's Nihilistic stance towards Japan's relationship to the world's superpowers. And while nihilism describes Shinoda, existentialism may better describe Muraki and Saeko. Gambling, animalistic sex, drugs, all in an effort to just feel something, anything, and to get lost in the moments those emotions provide. Some would say that the gambling scenes are too long and do little to advance the plot, but this movie's script is made up mostly of unspoken dialogue and it is during the gambling scenes that the main characters are developed.While I loved 95 percent of this film's moody and atmospheric lighting, at times it's so dark you can't tell what's going on. Still, the shots are well constructed, the actors well directed, and their performances subtle yet effective. Dig the sexual tension that is constantly building between Muraki and Saeko, and how this tension is dealt with. Somehow I felt myself sympathizing with this killer in a very real way, and this says something about Shinoda's and "Pale Flowers" success.