February 6: Stray Dog

Thursday, February 6 2020 | Nora inu aka Stray Dog Japan 1949 d. Akira Kurosawa with Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko Miyoshi, Noriko Honma, Isao Kimura, Minoru Chiaki, Ichiro Sugai and Noriko Sengoku. Black and white. In Japanese with English subtitles. 122 m

“Kurosawa Noir: While a rubble-strewn Tokyo swelters through a torrid heat wave, awkward young white-suited detective Mifune finds to his shame that his pistol has been stolen – and then that it’s been used in a murder. Thus begins his obsessive, guilt-ridden search, highlighted by nearly ten-minute dialogue-less sequence shot by hidden camera in the toughest black market section of the city….Kurosawa adapted his own unpublished novel for this, his first detective film and the real beginning of the genre in Japan.” Film Forum

Links: IMDB Wikipedia

See Also: Shizukanaru Kettō aka The Quiet Duel (Kurosawa, 1949), Banshun aka Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)

Series: Winter 2020 :: Akira Kurosawa Tokyo Postwar