Black Line

In Black Line (Kurosen Chitai, 1960), the second entry in his Line series, Ishii Teruo again dove into the world of urban crime, basing his script on a true incident.
Machida Koji (Amachi Shigeru), a tabloid tipster, is on the trail of a secret prostitution ring, when, after being drugged, he wakes up in a strange apartment next to a dead whore. Knowing that he has been set up as the killer, Machida goes looking for those responsible.
Meanwhile, a rival reporter, Torii (Hosokawa Toshio), realizes that Machida is the man the cops are after.
After a frantic search, Machida discovers that real killer is a punk named Sabu (Naruto Yoji) who proves maddeningly elusive. He also encounters the slinky, sharp-tongued Maya (Mihara Yoko), who gives him bits of helpful information - but not everything. While trying to extract more from her, including the behind-the-scenes business of a gang-connected cabaret, he starts falling for her. But he still has a long, dangerous way to go in his quest for exoneration - and survival.
The scene of Machida frantically searching for Sabu in a creepy mannequin factory, thrashing his way through dangling body parts, has a surreal “ero guro” (i.e., “erotic and grotesque”) tone that is uniquely Ishii. The final fight scene, in which Machida drops dramatically from a freight car onto a barge, has a sweaty intensity that also became an Ishii trademark.