Stray Dog
Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Japan. 1949. NR. 122 min.
- Sun, Sep 5, 2:00 pm
Presented on a new 35mm print!
“Stray Dog is an early collaboration with Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura. Kurosawa and Mifune would go on to make 16 films together before a falling out occurred during the making of Akahige (Red Beard). On an especially hot summer day, a young homicide detective named Murukami (Mifune) has his pistol stolen on a crowded bus. His attempts to find it are unsuccessful until he is teamed up with the older, wiser detective Sato (Shimura). They discover the gun is being used for increasingly dangerous crimes. What appears on the surface to be a traditional film noir becomes an allegory of postwar Japan. Guns are scarce under American control, and the stolen gun becomes an emblem of lost power. The rookie cop soon realizes that both he and the man he is hunting are veterans of the war and actually have much in common. He and the hunted are both stray dogs, separated only by a thin line of morality.” (Ted the Fiddler)