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.
