Pale Flower is a 1964 film from Japan directed by Mashiro Shinoda.
It's a film noir about a yakuza hitman named Muraki. Muraki has just gotten back after a three year prison term for killing a man—and not for the yakuza, either; Muraki killed that guy because he wanted to and he enjoyed it. Muraki finds himself back with his gang, the Funada gang. Funada has just made peace with his rival, Yasuoka, and the members of the Funada gang don't seem to be doing much more than sitting around gambling, mostly playing the Japanese card game hanafuda
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At one of these illegal hanufada games Muraki meets the mysterious, alluring Saeko. Saeko is a stylish young woman, apparently of an upper-class background, who loves gambling. In fact she's obsessed with gambling and with thrill-seeking of all sorts. Muraki has a girlfriend, Shinko, who regards him with doglike devotion, but he is powerfully drawn to Saeko and she to him. Their mutual obsession and Saeko's need for thrills lead to terrible consequences.
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Shinko has an admirer, an earnest young man who wears glasses and wants to marry her. But she only has eyes for Muraki, who doesn't seem to care about her at all except as a booty call.
- The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: It does when Yoh flings a knife at Muraki, and the knife lands in a post.
- Chiaroscuro: The movie is shot in black and white and almost all of it is shot at night, and usually indoors. Dramatic contrasts between light and darkness are found throughout. The various hanufada games in windowless smoky rooms are good examples, as is the scene where Muraki is chasing after Yoh down a dark alleyway.
- Defeat Means Friendship: A most odd subplot with Muraki and Jiro the rival Yasuoka yakuza. Jiro tries to kill Muraki in a bowling alley, because once upon a time Muraki killed his buddy. He fails. This violated the peace agreement between the Funada and Yasuoka gangs, so Jiro apologizes by, uh, severing his finger and giving it to Muraki (see Yubitsume below). Afterwards, they're buddies. At the end when Muraki knows he's about to go back to jail, he gives his coat to Jiro, the severed finger still inside in a box.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Facilitates the chiaroscuro and the dark, gritty atmosphere of film noir.
- Distant Finale: A "Two Years Later" time skip finds Muraki in prison. He's told by a newly arrived fellow gangster that Saeko is dead, killed by Yoh in "a crime of passion."
- Evil Feels Good: Muraki says specifically to Saeko that he killed the guy he killed not for revenge, or because it was his duty, or out of self-defense, but because he wanted to. And what's more, he enjoyed it.Muraki: I felt more alive than I ever had before.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Several instances of this in a film that is filled with Chiaroscuro. Possibly the most dramatic example is the introduction of Yoh at the hanufada game, not playing, but sitting against the wall with his face half in shadow as he stares at Muraki.
- Love Martyr: Shinko. Muraki pretty clearly does not give a rat's ass about her. He's never even nice to her, showing no sign of enjoying her company beyond using her for sex. He tells her that she should marry that nerdy suitor of hers "before it's too late." And he basically abandons her to spend all his time with Saeko. But she doesn't care, saying that he can even have an affair with Saeko if he wants; she'll still follow him anywhere.
- Parental Abuse: Shinko reveals to Muraki that her stepfather regularly sexually abused her.
- Riddle for the Ages: After his fellow Yakuza tells Muraki about Saeko's murder, he says "We discovered who she really was. She was actually—". At that instant the guard summons Muraki back, his time in the yard having elapsed. In his closing voiceover Muraki says he doesn't care who she was.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The murder at the end, where Muraki grabs his victim and stabs him in the gut, is obviously inspired by a Real Life incident: the infamous 1960 assassination of politician Ineijiro Asanuma, stabbed by a katana-wielding assassin as he was giving a speech on Japanese television.
- Staggered Zoom: Played with when Yoh is introduced. There's a classic Staggered Zoom onto Yoh's face, three shots with each closer to the last, but instead of directly cutting from one shot to the next there are intercuts to Muraki staring at Yoh.
- Thrill Seeker: Saeko's personality is defined by an overpowering need for adrenaline and thrills at any cost. She loves to gamble and doesn't care if she loses money. She drag races her car through the Tokyo streets. She shoots up heroin because it's exciting. She's clearly sexually turned on after she and Muraki narrowly escape getting arrested in a police raid on the card game. And at the end she is absolutely mesmerized when Muraki murders a man for her amusement.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: For all their obsession with each other, and despite Muraki's obvious attraction to Saeko, they never consummate their relationship. In one scene they're naked in bed together, having tricked the cops on a raid (It Makes Sense in Context), and Saeko quite clearly offers herself up to Muraki non-verbally. Instead, he lets the moment pass—and they play cards instead. In fact, their thrill-seeking seems to be them consummating their relationship in a different way.
- The Voiceless: There are many shots of Yoh staring at either Muraki or Saeko, and there's a whole scene where Yoh tries to kill Muraki in an alley, but he never speaks.
- Yakuza: Japanese gangsters, although aside from that one murder at the end, they don't do much gangster stuff, mainly sitting around playing cards.
- Yubitsume: The uniquely Japanese ritual in which one does penance and offers apology by slicing off a finger and giving it to the person one has offended. Jiro does this after trying and failing to kill Muraki.
