
Freelance reporter “Scoop” Machida is hot on the trail of a prostitution ring called the Black Line, when he is framed for the murder of a young woman. Forced to clear his own name, the handsome journalist sinks deeper into the Black Line’s rotten swamp of drugs, prostitution, and murder and finds unexpected help in Maya, a steamy female gambler familiar with the neon-lit streets, shadowy alleyways, and seedy nightclubs he must navigate. The closest film in the Line series to classic American film noir, Ishii’s Black Line is a pulpy assortment of crime film conventions including the starkly expressionistic black and white cinematography by Jûgyô Yoshida, a jazzy music score by Michiaki Watanabe, and a sleazy screenplay by Ishii and Ichirô Miyagawa.

as Koji Machida

as Misako

as Maya

as Goro Torii

as Reiko Onuma

as Chiaki

as Kaneko Sano

as Hotel manager

as Joe

as Yukichi Tachibana

as Photo seller

as Taizo

as Kayoko (gay boy)

as Hotel maid Tokiko

as Kayo

as Emi Hamaguchi

as Kyôko

as Singapore (waitress)

as Ranko Kuroki

as Old man at boat store

as Sabu

as Manager

as Namikawa

as Old man at mannequin store



as Gay boy B

as Policeman

as Grocery store clerk



as Detective Kondo

as Detective Suzuki

as Detective Inoue


