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.
天知茂
as Koji Machida
三ツ矢歌子
as Misako
三原葉子
as Maya
細川俊夫
as Goro Torii
Reiko Seto
as Reiko Onuma
Kyôko Yashiro
as Chiaki
魚住純子
as Kaneko Sano
鮎川浩
as Hotel manager
Yuji Munakata
as Joe
大友純
as Yukichi Tachibana
小高まさる
as Photo seller
Ryuji Moriyama
as Taizo
