Nora Inu
Stray Dog
1949

directed by
Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa didn't like this one so much, but I found it pretty good. Very reminiscent of Vittorio de Sica's Italian Bicycle Thieves,
The story is about a cop whose pistol gets stolen and who has to start searching around Tokyo for the thief.



Doing de Sica two better: a pistol is much smaller than a bicycle; Tokyo is much larger than Roma anyway.
There's an amount of confusion between robber and victim, later worked out much stronger
in High and Low, where they become each other's mirror image.
I especially like the scene with a girl in a starlit night scene.
It's rather obviously faked in the studio, but who cares?








Kurosawa often uses fog, wind and rain
and, what with Godzilla and all, Toho had
very good fog, wind and rain machines.


Produced by Shintoho
Japan 1949

122 minutes, B/W, Academy screen

Credits:		Cast:
producer screenplay photographed art director music by	Shojiro Motoki Ryuzo Kikushima Akira Kurosawa Asakasu Nakai Si Matsumuyaa Fumio Hayasaka	Murakami, the detective Sato, the head detective Yuro, the criminal Harumi, his girl Hondo, the suspect Giri	Toshiro Mifune Takashi Shimura Ko Kimura Keiko Awaji Reisaburo Yamamoto Noriko Sengoku

Stray Dog

On the streets of postwar Tokyo, a rookie police detective searches for his missing gun. Gritty Akira Kurosawa drama blends American "film noir" stylings with a look at the moral vacuum that formed in Japan following World War II. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Ko Kimura star.

Standard; Soundtrack: Japanese mono; Subtitles: English; audio commentary; documentary.

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