One matchstick. One murder. An entire apartment block turns vulture.
A woman in a bar was killed at a new construction site in an apartment building, and a handbag containing the value of five million yen was taken away. Detective Kuribayashi, who was involved in the investigation, turned his eyes to Kishida Ryohei, a cabaret musician who lives in a nearby apartment. He had a criminal record for stabbing his wife, who had betrayed him, and a match he worked for had fallen at the scene of the murder. However, Kishida, who appeared at the police station, stubbornly denied the crime, and he returned to his apartment without physical evidence.However, the residents of the apartment who learned of this had been cold-blooded and rumored to be a murderer. Kishida has a secret crush on the stripper Tachibana Yumi, who lives in the apartment directly opposite.However, Yumi has a lover of a plumber named Maki Shinji.
Direction
Iwama's suffocating apartment-block framing builds dread without violence.
Acting
Takahashi's crushed dignity as the accused musician is devastating.
Director
Tsuruo Iwama
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
1958 Japan's apartment 'danchi' culture created perfect petri dishes for surveillance and collective judgment—this film weaponizes that architecture.
Director Tsuruo Iwama made only four features; this is his most survived work, rescued from obscurity by Japanese noir revivalists in the 2010s.
JP
