Yoshitaro Nomura Film Season: Zero Focus

Zero Focus has the most overtly film noir stylings of all Nomura’s films – it's all voiceover, revelations, duplicitous characters, and has a general sense of unease. It’s also the one most clearly indebted to Alfred Hitchcock, with a dual-identity plot and elevated showdowns reminiscent of both Vertigo and Rebecca, plus a Bernard Hermann-like score.

Teiko has only been married to her ambitious salesman husband Kenichi for a week before he leaves to tie up business in coastal Kanazawa. He promptly disappears, and so Teiko treks off to find him. She uncovers a murder plot against a legacy of wartime prostitution, stigma and shame. A great example of Japan’s noir boom, this is the first of two film versions, the latter was released in Japan in 2009.