Pale Flower
Plot. Muraki, a hardboiled Yakuza gangster, has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. Revisiting his old gambling haunts, he meets Saeko, a striking young upper-class woman who is out seeking thrills, and whose presence adds spice to the staid masculine underworld rituals. Muraki becomes her mentor while simultaneously coping with the shifts of power that have affected the gangs while he was jailed. When he notices a rogue, drug-addicted young punk hanging around the gambling dens, he realizes that Saeko's insatiable lust for intense pleasures may be leading her to  self-destruction. Production. Director Shinoda was influenced by Charles Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du mal" while making the film. Shinoda chose the subject of yakuza as he felt the yakuza world is the only place where a Japanese ceremonial structure is sustained. Release. When screenwriter Masaru Baba saw Shinoda's film focus on visual and sound, he complained to the managers at the company Shochiku. This led to a nine-month delay of the film's release. Home video. Homevision released a Region 1 DVD of "Pale Flower" on November 18, 2003. The Criterion Collection released a DVD and Blu -ray edition of the film that features a video interview with Masahiro Shinoda as well as commentary by film scholar Peter Grilli . Legacy. In 2012, filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia included the film in his personal top ten (for The Sight & Sound Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time poll), writing: "Why can’t all film noir be like "Pale Flower?""