So very black and so very white, so Japanese and so very cool, this is a most impressive film. More new wave than neo-noir, this looks fantastic throughout and if the story is not much and the telling not very fast, it is always arresting. The sparse dialogue is so of the period with talk of boredom, adrenaline rushes and death and if the gambling game itself appears a little basic, the sinister chanting and chip clicking help make for most hypnotic sequences. never mind that the men seem to have to remove their jackets and trousers and shield their chip behind their jacket. The music, at times ambient and at others more jazzy always seems to be spot on, whether we are wandering the back streets of Tokyo and Yokohama or racing in cars along the highway. All performances convince and there are such characters, some only hinted at here, that it seems perfectly possible half a dozen films could have been made.
Review of Pale Flower
