Do diamonds burn? This question — and its answer — advances the plot in Seijun Suzuki’s Ankokugai no bijo (US: Underworld Beauty), a quintessential Japanese noir in which the heat of combustion (cremations, kilns, coal furnaces) intensifies the hunt for diamonds among the desperate and duplicitous of the criminal underworld. Just out of prison, an older, wiser Miyamoto (Michitarô Mizushima) retrieves his stolen diamonds from a hiding place inside a tunnel (a scene with a subtle science fiction ambience) so that he can sell them and give the money to Mihara (Toru Abe), the young man who was crippled during the heist and now lives an honest life running a street cart. This generous liquidation plan, however, is disrupted by masked gangsters, compelling Mihara to swallow the jewels before falling to his death. This is not the end, however. In fact, as Mihara’s sister Akiko (Mari Shiraki) guards his body in the hospital morgue, at least one greedy plotter devises a way to extract the loot from the corpse’s stomach. Meanwhile, Miyamoto, feeling even guiltier since Mihara’s death, commits to protecting the precocious Akiko from the bad actors all around her, which may even include her love interest, the mannequin sculptor Arita (Hiroshi Kondo) for whom Akiko poses nude. Suzuki’s creative camera produces extraordinary compositions, utilizing the motion of nightclubs, elevators, and swinging doors to add tension and artistry to what might otherwise have been a fairly standard yakuza film.