Kuro no hôkokusho (1963)

Kuro no hôkokusho: Directed by Yasuzô Masumura. With Ken Utsui, Junko Kanô, Hideo Takamatsu, Shigeru Kôyama. After a businessman is murdered, an investigation identifies a suspect who is then put on trial for that crime.

“Daiei Studios in Japan clearly felt they had a winner with a series of films loosely based around industrial espionage and intrigue after the success of Yasuzo Masumurau0026#39;s Black test Car (1963) and he was given this, the second, the following year. One can only speculate but it would seem that whilst the director pulled out all the stops for the unusual venture with the first film he was perhaps not as enthusiastic with the second. There is still plenty of style and interesting camera angles with decent dialogue well delivered by all concerned but there is only so much one can do with a thriller so lacking in action. Basically a police procedural and court room drama we are intrigued to find out how the body came to be strewn on the floor in the opening scene but there are a fair number of characters and a fair amount of changing stories, sufficient to make this a pretty confusing excercise.”