Stray Dog **** (1949, Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko Miyoshi) – Classic Movie Review 10,388

Director Akira Kurosawa’s 1949 Japanese black and white police procedural film Stray Dog [Nora Inu] is written by Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima, and stars Toshirô Mifune as Detective Murakami, Takashi Shimura as Chief Detective Sato, Keiko Awaji as the girl-friend Harumi Namaki, and Eiko Miyoshi as Harumi’s mother Madame Namiki.

Japan’s attempt at a quick, American-style film noir crime drama action thriller becomes something more brooding and dangerous in this tale of a young homicide detective (Mifune) journeying with the older and wiser chief detective (Shimura) through the Tokyo underworld in search of the man who has picked his pocket on a bus and stolen his Colt pistol.

Director Kurosawa slowly blurs the distinctions between right and wrong as Mifune slides towards criminality, and, with the story unfolding a heatwave in Tokyo, there is an oppressive feel to his scenes of a city baking in the midsummer heat.

A poised and powerful look at the struggle to maintain order in war-ravaged post-World War Two Japan and the nation’s mood in painful postwar recovery, Stray Dog helped to establish Kurosawa as his nation’s greatest film-maker.

The Score (Takashi Matsuyama), Art Direction (Takashi Matsuyama) and Cinematography (Asakazu Nakai) are all also very notable.

It is significant as one of the first of Japanese detective movies and contains elements both of film noir and neo-realism, and is a precursor to the police procedural and buddy cop film genres.

It was released by Toho in Japan on 17 October 1949 but did not get released in the US with English subtitles till August 31 1963.

Kurosawa recalled: ‘No shooting ever went as smoothly. The excellent pace of the shooting and the good feeling of the crew can be sensed in the finished film.’ He said his his script was inspired by Jules Dassin’s The Naked City and the works of Georges Simenon.

Also in the cast are Noriko Honma as Wooden Tub Shop woman, Isao Kimura as Yusa, Minoru Chiaki as Girlie Show director, Ichiro Sugai as Yayoi Hotel owner, Gen Shimizu as Police Inspector Nakajima, Reikichi Kawamura as Officer Ichikawa and Noriko Sengoku as Girl.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,388

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