Main Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Ko (Isao) Kimura
Release Year: 1949
Country: JP
Run Time: 122 minutes
Plot
Akira Kurosawa directs the black-and-white 1949 film noir Nora Inu (released in the U.S. in 1963 as Stray Dog). In his third film with Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune plays young police detective Murakami. One summer day on a crowded bus in Tokyo, his gun is stolen by a pickpocket. Rather than face the shame of reporting his gun missing, he chooses to go out and find it himself (there were not many weapons on the streets of Tokyo immediately following WWII). While trying to locate the gun, he discovers an entire criminal underworld. He is eventually helped on his journey by superior officer Sato (Takashi Shimura), who seems to suggest that the young detective is indulging in his own criminal desires. The search becomes even more desperate when Murakami finds out that his gun has been used in several crimes, including murder. He then develops an obsession with finding both the gun and the killer. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Review
A stunning piece of international film noir, Stray Dog is a superb early effort of the legendary Akira Kurosawa. Coming just before Rashomon, the film that would establish the director's name and standing worldwide, Dog is one of his lesser known works but worthy of its place in the top of his pantheon. Yes, there are some quibbles. Dog is a tad too long. It lacks the sweep and grandeur of Kurosawa's epics. It occasionally repeats itself. But these are minor flaws in a major work. Besides, any film that contains the amazing nine-minute, almost dialogue-free montage of the underworld of postwar Tokyo, filmed surreptitiously and using many unsuspecting "real" people rather than actors and edited with impeccable precision, would be worth any number of flaws. And there are other impressive moments, including an lovely moment in which the beautiful nighttime vista suddenly intrudes glowingly upon the lead character and the girl he wants to help him, or the final chase section, in which one realizes that all of the tension that has been built up and released in the preceding 100 minutes has only been an exercise in preparation for the unbearable tension of this climax. But Kurosawa is not working strictly from a technical standpoint. He has created characters that bear deeper examination and provide unexpected rewards, and has placed them in a story that allows him to probe the necessity of choices, the effect of society on criminality and the state of the Japanese psyche in 1949. He's aided by a dead-on cast, lead by the perfect Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura. Mifune, young and hungry, is tightly coiled in Dog, a complicated mass of insecurity and bravado. Shimura plays the older and wiser partner as a living person, avoiding the clichés that are so often part of such characters. They are matchless performances in a dazzling film. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Rookie homicide detective Murakami (Toshirō Mifune) frantically seeks his stolen Colt pistol which, to his shame, has been pickpocketed on a bus. A manhunt begins when the stolen gun is used in a murder. The older and wiser detective, Sato (Takashi Shimura), takes Murakami under his wing. The evolving relationship between the two men gives the film depth. The action throughout takes place during a heatwave in a bombed-out post-war Tokyo.
Quote: "A stray dog sees only what it chases." --Detective Sato
Original story
Kurosawa mentioned in several interviews that his script was inspired by the work of Georges Simenon, without noting a particular work of the latter. There are similarities between the plot of Stray Dog and Simenon's Maigret novel "Maigret's Revolver", most notably that both stories involve a gun stolen from a policeman and the sequence of crimes committed with it. However, Maigret's gun is stolen from his home while he is away, not lifted directly from his person. Further, "Maigret's Revolver" was not published until 1952, three years after Stray Dog.
Stray Dog was originally written by Kurosawa as a novel in 40 days, after which Kurosawa took another 50 days to adapt it for screen.
Influence
The film was remade as Nora Inu (1973) starring Tetsuya Watari as Murakami and Shinsuke Ashida as Sato. The location was changed from Tokyo to Okinawa.
Awards
At the 1950 Mainichi Film Concours it won awards for Best Actor (Takashi Shimura), Best Film Score (Fumio Hayasaka), Best Cinematography (Asakazu Nakai) and Best Art Direction (So Matsuyama).
Keiko Awaji as Harumi Namiki, showgirl in Stray Dog
