In the original Japanese, Ten to Sen. The English title is also often translated as Points and Lines, which was how I originally saw it being referred to.

In a cinema that—at least to the outside eye—seems to be dominated by the works of directors like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, films that are rather more ‘pure entertainment’ tend to get overlooked. The amusing yet insightful little look at childhood, Ohayo (1959), for example; or this classic noir, a police procedural that revolves around trains: their schedules, their stations, their networks… and how they (along with a ferry and various aeroplane routes) might have been instrumental in helping a murderer pull off a crime.

The story begins on a bleak and deserted seashore, where two dead bodies have been found. The cops from the Fukuoka Police Department have come to investigate, and seem to have reached a consensus that this is a case of a double suicide: everything points to it. A man and a woman, her head sweetly pillowed on his arm, lying stretched out beside each other. The police doctor comes to the conclusion that they’ve died of cyanide poisoning.