Rusty Knife

Corruption has already taken hold in Udaka, a city growing fast after the war. A prosecutor determined to bring a self assured gangster before the court receives an unsigned letter about the death of a city councillor five years earlier, a death closed as suicide. The trail leads to Tachibana, who is trying to leave his past behind and build a decent life; years ago he served a prison sentence for killing the man who raped his fiancee, and he lost her after that as well. Keiko, the daughter of the dead councillor, is part of the story too. The film is about a man being forced to speak of his past at the same moment the truth of the city comes out. Yujiro Ishihara and Mie Kitahara appear in Toshio Masuda’s ninety minute Japanese film, completed in 1958.