Yellow Line

aka 黄線地帯 イエローライン aka Osen Chitai

1960
Written and directed by Teruo Ishii

Teruo Ishii’s films have a unique quality is hard to describe without watching the films. There is a constant undercurrent of body obsession, with both body parts and with deformities or oddly shaped people. Many characters have scars, limps, or are just lit or made up to look more physically extreme than they are. Ishii’s films for Shintoho often feature underground prostitution rings, and are shot in realistic styles that border on documentarian at times (rumored to be to lessen influence from Shintoho’s boss Mitsugu Okura!) The Shintoho era films are less extreme than the ero guro work for Toei that would gain Ishii fame overseas, but you can see the roots beginning to take form. Some of Ishii’s more creative early work can be seen in the Super Giant films – or Starman as we know and love him in the States – (and also discussed in this Infernal Brains Podcast!)

Yellow Line is a noirish tale of suspense about gangsters, prostitutes, kidnappings, sex slavery, reporters, and saving the girl. In Yellow Line, every character has a quirk or mannerism – Emi giggles before everything she says, the reporter Mayama is constantly snapping his fingers, the Hitman grins a sickly toothy sneer. This adds to their characterizations and are slipped in naturally enough they don’t become distracting. Characters fall into their stereotypical roles, but remain distinctive enough that you remember aspects about them more than their allotted place in society.

Yellow Line was screened as part of the Shintoho retrospective that stopped by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and I had the pleasure of watching with both Todd from FourDK and duriandave from SoftFilm, making this a powerhouse of Bay Area obscure Asian cinema blogging.