Smashing the O-Line

Screening on Film

Directed by Seijun Suzuki.
With Hiroyuki Nagato, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Soichi Ozawa.
Japan, 1960, 35mm, black & white, 83 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: Japan Foundation

This crime thriller features one of the most nihilistic characters in Suzuki’s early films: Katiri, a reporter so ambitiously amoral that he’ll sell out anyone—including his partner and the drug dealer he’s sleeping with—to get a scoop. But what happens when an even more ruthless female gang boss kidnaps his sister? With its jazzy musical score and sordid milieu of drug smuggling and human trafficking, Smashing the O-Line is one of Suzuki’s darkest urban tales.