Stray Dog
1949 ‘Nora inu’ Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Synopsis
In Akira Kurosawa's gritty Stray Dog, a young police detective gets his pistol stolen on a crowded bus during the oppressive heat of a late 1940s Tokyo summer. The gun is later used in a robbery and murder making finding it even more important.
Cast
Studio
Popular reviews
More-
Après-guerre Japan, humiliatingly disarmed and "ready to collapse from anxiety," as sweltering needle-in-haystack procedural. The literally loaded MacGuffin is a snub-nosed pistol pinched in a crowded bus, the greenhorn homicide detective (Toshiro Mifune) desperately combs the underworld for it in the midst of a blasting heat wave. His journey into the black market is a clammy panorama of vagabonds, molls, yakuza dandies and chorines, with each pungent vignette leading closer to the trigger-happy war vet (Isao Kimura), the investigator’s despairing doppelganger. "Maybe there are no bad people, only bad situations," Mifune ponders, the alternative Self encountered. "Leave that psychoanalysis to the detective novels," advises his older, wiser partner (Takashi Shimura). Akira Kurosawa at a stylistic junction with Hollywood: what he…
-
A stunning early Kurosawa noir. Not quite the refined master he'd soon become (his next film would be the incredible Rashomon). but you can already see his defining style is present. This film suffers from some harsh editing and the subtitles on my DVD were poorly translated, which made it slightly hard to follow in a few places. Still a captivating and engrossing film. Starring Toshirô Mifune & Takashi Shimura, a duo that Kurosawa would go on to make countless classics with. Having just got a hold of the 18 disc boxset and I am slowly making my way through in chronological order. What a journey.
-
One year before 'Rashômon', Akira Kurosawa delivered his take on Film Noir filtered through a police procedural that sees Toshirô Mifune as Detective Murakami display and ever growing guilt and despair over having his gun stolen on a bus, and becoming increasingly obsessed in tracking down it's whereabouts as the bullets start affecting innocent lives.
Although a year apart, 'Stray Dog' plays much like Vittorio De Sica's 'Bicycle Thieves' in that stolen item becomes a window into social disintegration. The suffocation of a heatwave soaks every frame with every player mopping their brow with handkerchiefs and cooling themselves by any means, and this plays into Kurosawa's desire to break convention by escaping 'Noir' trappings by avoiding the nightime shadows normally… -
It's early Kurosawa, so a little rough around the edges. (Kinda heartening to know that even he didn't arrive fully perfect.) But that chase scene at the end is quite something.
-
disarmed but not dishonored.
-
Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog was his last offering of the 40s. It came a year before his worldwide breakthrough with Rashomon, and also marks the second partnership (after Drunken Angel) of Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura under the director. Here, Mifune plays a young detective whose pistol is stolen on a bus, and he must traverse the streets of a scorching Tokyo to retrieve it before it’s too late. Shimura plays his older partner and they share a wonderful chemistry, Shimura’s laid back but experienced cop guiding the hot-headed yet intelligent young Mifune.
The two go to different corners of the city, searching for that illusive gun, and meet many eccentric characters along the way. As Mifune gets in deeper…
Recent reviews
More-
Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog was his last offering of the 40s. It came a year before his worldwide breakthrough with Rashomon, and also marks the second partnership (after Drunken Angel) of Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura under the director. Here, Mifune plays a young detective whose pistol is stolen on a bus, and he must traverse the streets of a scorching Tokyo to retrieve it before it’s too late. Shimura plays his older partner and they share a wonderful chemistry, Shimura’s laid back but experienced cop guiding the hot-headed yet intelligent young Mifune.
The two go to different corners of the city, searching for that illusive gun, and meet many eccentric characters along the way. As Mifune gets in deeper…
-
Interesting more as a prototype for virtually every philosophical police procedural ever made than as a piece on its own. I'm inclined to agree with Kurosawa, who described it as containing "all that technique and not one real thought in it." Or rather, there are thoughts, but mostly jejune ones. This, combined with the deliberately paced plot, makes for some serious viewer fatigue, which Kurosawa attempts to counteract by having his characters randomly freak out every so often. It doesn't get truly rousing until the finale, but even that is tainted by Kurosawa's penchant for overexplaining everything. Still, all that technique!
-
Japanese Noir. Lovely. Perfectly composed, of course, each frame “frame-able”. Not galvanizing, but a good flicker that I’ll come back to.
-
Après-guerre Japan, humiliatingly disarmed and "ready to collapse from anxiety," as sweltering needle-in-haystack procedural. The literally loaded MacGuffin is a snub-nosed pistol pinched in a crowded bus, the greenhorn homicide detective (Toshiro Mifune) desperately combs the underworld for it in the midst of a blasting heat wave. His journey into the black market is a clammy panorama of vagabonds, molls, yakuza dandies and chorines, with each pungent vignette leading closer to the trigger-happy war vet (Isao Kimura), the investigator’s despairing doppelganger. "Maybe there are no bad people, only bad situations," Mifune ponders, the alternative Self encountered. "Leave that psychoanalysis to the detective novels," advises his older, wiser partner (Takashi Shimura). Akira Kurosawa at a stylistic junction with Hollywood: what he…
-
A stunning early Kurosawa noir. Not quite the refined master he'd soon become (his next film would be the incredible Rashomon). but you can already see his defining style is present. This film suffers from some harsh editing and the subtitles on my DVD were poorly translated, which made it slightly hard to follow in a few places. Still a captivating and engrossing film. Starring Toshirô Mifune & Takashi Shimura, a duo that Kurosawa would go on to make countless classics with. Having just got a hold of the 18 disc boxset and I am slowly making my way through in chronological order. What a journey.
-
One year before 'Rashômon', Akira Kurosawa delivered his take on Film Noir filtered through a police procedural that sees Toshirô Mifune as Detective Murakami display and ever growing guilt and despair over having his gun stolen on a bus, and becoming increasingly obsessed in tracking down it's whereabouts as the bullets start affecting innocent lives.
Although a year apart, 'Stray Dog' plays much like Vittorio De Sica's 'Bicycle Thieves' in that stolen item becomes a window into social disintegration. The suffocation of a heatwave soaks every frame with every player mopping their brow with handkerchiefs and cooling themselves by any means, and this plays into Kurosawa's desire to break convention by escaping 'Noir' trappings by avoiding the nightime shadows normally… -
A new policeman's pistol is stolen whilst he is off-duty, and then is used in a series of crimes. He is racked with guilt at the loss and the use of his gun and tries desperately to find those responsible.
A great story from Akira Kurosawa, made all the more interesting by the cultural differences between post-war Japan and the life I have known. -
I’ve been desperately eager to see this film and Drunken Angel for a very long time, as they are two of the very earliest collaborations between Kurosawa and Mifune, probably my favourite ever actor-director dynamic. I picked this one up for five bucks, and I was pleased to say the least (it’s usually about 12 quid on Amazon). If it had been my first Kurosawa experience I would have been far from disappointed; however, as it is, I am very marginally let down.
It is extremely tense throughout, and Kurosawa uses the stereotypical Japanese passion for protocol and fulfilling the responsibilities entailed in one’s job to drag Detective Murakami (Mifune) into an underworld of vice, corruption, seedy bars and very…
-
Stray Dog has some pretty great scenes in it, but it often falls victim to weird pacing and fairly superficial and archetypal character development. It's great comparing this to Kurosawa's more dynamic pictures, but it's inferior in almost every way to his critically acclaimed classics. While Stray Dog set the bar from a large chain of buddy cop films, nothing here is forever unique like Seven Samurai or High and Low are. A fun watch, but doesn't really compare to Kurosawa's later films.