Black River

黒い河
1957 114 min Crime · Drama

You live in a riverside town where kindness is currency and cruelty walks free. Then a visiting student arrives with his idealistic girlfriend and an uninvited guest whose grin hides a switchblade. Masaki Kobayashi’s 1957 Kaneto Shindō script pinches postwar Japan’s slack law like a vise left to rust. The film walks away with nothing resolved.

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi · Written by Zenzō Matsuyama, Takeo Tomishima

Starring Fumio Watanabe, Ineko Arima, Tatsuya Nakadai, Asao Sano, Seiji Miyaguchi, Eijirō Tōno

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