Pale Flower

Set in the world of Yakuzas and gambling dens, Masahiro Shinoda’s 1964 film features the kind of star-crossed lovers that populated great American noir movies of the forties. Ryō Ikebe plays a hitman who enters into a fraught relationship with a kindred soul played by Mariko Kaga. Things spiral from there. Merciless but poignant, Shinoda’s film routinely appears on critic’s top-ten lists.