Kurosawa film, Criterion DVD from Netflix. Mifune's debut with Kurosawa, and he is nearly unrecognizable(young) from my previous vision of him in their later work.

This one stars Takashi Shimura, another Kurosawa regular, who is also awesome, as a doctor treating a Yakuza gangster, played by Mifune, who has TB.

It's a very good film, and it comes with some very interesting commentary, partly about censorship in US occupied Japan at the time. The rules certainly didn't stop Kurosawa from making the film he wanted, perhaps they restricted him just enough to delay his true breakout. You can sense his talent though, and great things to come.

Surprisingly found this in the campbell avenue used dvd shop. It was a loaner from the N.H. library. How it made it to the shop I don't know. but for $2 I snapped it up. This is the Criterion edition, unlike the artwork pictured. Came with booklet too! Have now watched over half of the movie and while interesting, it has yet to fully grab me. It is interesting to see the young Tishuro Mufuni after only knowing him from later work. Must finish watching.

One of Kurosawa's least subtle films, where everything is on the surface and that surface is the stinking, rotten corpse of post-war Japan, as polluted spiritually by delusions of honor and codes as the giant cesspool in the center of the neighborhood is corrupted by waste and disease. Toshiro Mifune becomes a star with his performance as the tubercular gangster, all hollow angles and bewilderment, who would rather cling to his false ideology than act rationally to save his own life. "The Japanese make so many pointless sacrifices."

Weird seeing young, beardless Toshiro Mifune. But man, he BRINGS IT in this movie.

Drunken Angel is an important film for one huge reason; this was the first Akira Kurosawa film that starred the remarkable Toshirô Mifune. The two would continue to collaborate for the following decades creating many more masterpieces besides the one we have right here.

Drunken Angel is a yakuza gangster film and it's one of Kurosawa's best from the 1940's. Mifune gives a brilliant performance and shows that what he can do with a facial expression and maybe one word is more than what an actor with several lines of dialogue could get across. His range of different expressions is astonishing. Takashi Shimura also brings a great performance as usual.

Really what else can I say? Drunken Angel is another slam dunk from Akira Kurosawa.

Impossible not to give this a 5. Early Kurosawa is still better than many directors best work. Such a dark film set in a squalid slum in Tokyo. An alcoholic doctor befriends and tries to save a yakuza member. An early appearance for Kurosawa favourites Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura (who completely steals the show here with a phenomenal performance). A stunning piece of cinema which Kurosawa considered to be his first real film.

Pretty good film. A look into the lives of two head-strong individuals who are at constant odds with each other; a Yakuza member with TB and his doctor. It's not exactly a typical premise for a story but it definitely works. There is some great directing in this and Toshiro Mifune is awesome as well (handsome too).

A haunting yet mesmerizing film about a criminal suffering from tuberculosis as he seeks help from an alcoholic doctor as it features a brilliant Toshiro Mifune in his first of many collaborations with Akira Kurosawa.

A good first collaboration between Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune.