Black Line
Freelance reporter “Scoop” Machida is hot on the trail of a prostitution ring called the Black Line, when he is framed for the murder of a young woman. Forced to clear his own name, the handsome journalist sinks deeper into the Black Line’s rotten swamp of drugs, prostitution, and murder and finds unexpected help in Maya, a steamy female gambler familiar with the neon-lit streets, shadowy alleyways, and seedy nightclubs he must navigate. The closest film in the Line series to classic American film noir, Ishii’s Black Line is a pulpy assortment of crime film conventions including the starkly expressionistic black and white cinematography by Jûgyô Yoshida, a jazzy music score by Michiaki Watanabe, and a sleazy screenplay by Ishii and Ichirô Miyagawa.
- Year: 1960
- Country: Japan
- Genre: Crime
- Studio: Shintoho Company
- Keyword: prostitute, yakuza
- Director: Teruo Ishii
- Cast: Shigeru Amachi, Utako Mitsuya, Yōko Mihara, Toshio Hosokawa, Reiko Seto, Kyôko Yashiro
