Let's be realistic.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Viewed on Streaming. Cinematography/lighting = eight (8); stars; score = seven (7) stars. Director Masahiro Shinoda demonstrates his complete mastery of all components of the film medium and proceeds to demonstrate the loss of his creative talents (and mastery) in the same movie! He delivers a binary film consisting of two acts. Act One (roughly the first half of the movie) is taunt with fresh, edgy suspense and excitement as well as excellent direction. Act Two becomes perfunctory; surprisingly, it fails to build on the momentum Shinoda has heretofore created. Much of this disappointment is due to diminished "directorial energy," excessive repetition, and repeated telegraphing of how the movie will end. The plot is centered on a high-priced daytime hooker with a death wish she demonstrates by her nocturnal activities (including careless high-stakes gambling in dangerous (all-male) gangster environments, high-speed auto racing on city streets, and a growing interest in narcotics). The day-to-day machinations of low-to-mid level Yakuza gangs provide a backdrop with card gambling activities vividly (and repeatedly) portrayed, prostitution (of course), and the occasional murder of a rival gang member. Line deliveries are riddled with clues (i.e., telegraphing) as to how this story will end. Act Two also includes a dream sequence which only serves to underline what will eventually happen (and seems to have been inserted for audience members who are really, really slow on the uptake!). Talented character actors provide the major element of menace elicited by the film. They do not over act (which makes them truly scary!), and have been cast for their appearance and ability to act tough and intimidating---they really do look like gangsters are "supposed" to look like! (People you would not want to meet in a dark alley at night Da Yo!) Subtitles seem close enough to line deliveries (which are spoken in Kansai-Ben). But the use of off-white (instead of colored) text in a black and white film makes for an unnecessary irritant especially when superimposed over Japanese in the opening credits! Film score initially comes across as an orchestra tuning up prior to a performance. But the music soon becomes an integral component used by the Director to add excitement. Cinematography (wide screen, black and white) and lighting (especially of night scenes) are excellent and amplify the feeling of foreboding the film exudes (which is greatest in Act One). Restoration is fine. Highly recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

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.

Ryo Ikebe is perfect as the super-cool, sharply dressed ex-con who willingly seals his own fate despite his obvious intelligence and powers of perception. His body language is crisp and economical and his life experience is etched into his face. He is the Japanese doppleganger of the under-appreciated (except by Tarrantino) American actor Robert Forster. This is actually worthy of a remake starring Forster but I heavily doubt if any filmmaker can recreate the style and panache that Mr. Shinoda injected into every shot of the astonishing cinematography. In an interview on the DVD extra, he says that nihilism was his main theme but it's a quiet, shadow-covered nihilism, not explosive and bombastic. There are very few scenes of violence; action is not the show here. The heart of the film is the undefinable relationship between the adrenaline-loving rich girl and the yakuza hit man. Shinoda likens his position in life as the embodiment of post-war Japan caught between the Soviet Union and the USA. The climactic hit is brilliantly choreographed, shot and scored. Certain elements of Pale Flower evoked memories of The Face of Another, a totally different type of film that also explored the existential subjects of solitude, isolation and alienation.

Film devotees have long realized that the "new wave" art cinema of Japan in the 60's was as innovative and profound as the revolutionary American and European product of the era. What is now becoming clear to fans in the West inured to Godzilla and Starman is that the little-seen Japanese genre pictures of the time were in many cases just as startling and artistic. "Pale Flower" is a case in point. It has the breathtaking luminous-white on inky-black lighting, the fragmented framing, and massive potential energy threatening to explode from the edges of the screen that so characterize the contemporaneous films of Seijun Suzuki (of "Branded to Kill" fame). But instead of that director's post-modern excesses, this film takes a somber, meditative tack, not unlike Beat Takeshi's recent "Sonatine", presenting a carefully-wrought, moody character study amid the expected thrills. The musical score, when it surfaces, is suitably avant-garde, and the frame is filled with rich detail and well-defined characters, like the crime boss obsessed with his dental health. A must-see for the adventurous film buff.