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.

• Teruo IshiiDirector
• Chumei WatanabeOriginal Music Composer
• Ichirō MiyagawaScreenplay
• Teruo IshiiScreenplay

• Shigeru AmachiKoji Machida
• Utako MitsuyaMisako
• Yōko MiharaMaya
• Toshio HosokawaGoro Torii
• Reiko SetoReiko Onuma
• Kyôko YashiroChiaki
• Junko UozumiKaneko Sano
• Hiroshi AyukawaHotel manager
• Yuji MunakataJoe
• Jun ŌtomoYukichi Tachibana
• Masaru KodakaPhoto seller
• Ryuji MoriyamaTaizo