Pale Flower Aka Kawaita Hana (1964) Masahiro Shinoda, Ryô Ikebe, Mariko Kaga, Takashi Fujiki

At the center of "Pale Flower" stands a very quiet man, closed within himself, a professional killer. He works for a gang in the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, and as the film begins he has returned to Tokyo after serving a prison sentence for murder. He did the prison time as the price to be paid for committing a murder, but although we see his gang boss several times, even in a dentist's chair, there is no effort to make him seem worthy of such loyalty. He is an ordinary older man. Muraki (Ryo Ikebe), the yakuza, seems loyal more to the ideal of loyalty, a version of the samurai code. It is his fate to be a soldier and follow orders, and he is the instrument of that destiny. He thinks his crime was "stupid," but he is observing, not complaining.

At the center of "Pale Flower" stands a very quiet man, closed within himself, a professional killer. He works for a gang in the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, and as the film begins he has returned to Tokyo after serving a prison sentence for murder. He did the prison time as the price to be paid for committing a murder, but although we see his gang boss several times, even in a dentist's chair, there is no effort to make him seem worthy of such loyalty. He is an ordinary older man. Muraki (Ryo Ikebe), the yakuza, seems loyal more to the ideal of loyalty, a version of the samurai code. It is his fate to be a soldier and follow orders, and he is the instrument of that destiny. He thinks his crime was "stupid," but he is observing, not complaining.

Tôyama, a weak-willed businessman, is in debt to the Yakuza; they also have a video of him bribing a government minister. To clear his debts, he agrees to let them drug and kidnap his wife Shizuko, Japan's queen of the tango, and subject her to the proclivities of a 95-year-old voyeur, who's a Yakuza boss. After a masked ball, Shizuko is taken prisoner; she fights her captors, submitting only when the life of Kyôko, her female bodyguard, is threatened. Tôyama feels regret and seeks to buy back Shizuko, but by this time, she may be enjoying her situation. Is she, or is she pretending in order to protect herself and Kyôko? Would she want a way out if there is one?