Stray Dog,
Directed by Akira Kurosawa,
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Isao Kimura, Gen Shimizu

Now here is a real treat for cinephiles – the BFI has given this 1949 piece by the legendary Akira Kurosawa the fully restored, 4K treatment for the first time on Blu-Ray, and it looks absolutely brilliant. A Japanese take on the Noir Detective genre, it is set during a blistering heat wave in Tokyo, and the clarity of this lovingly restored edition makes it so that you can almost see every drop of sweat rolling down a character’s face; the sense of that almost unbearable summer heat; just like the much later Do The Right Thing, you can almost feel that heat in the way both the city streets and the characters are framed and shot, making it almost palpable.

Against this burning summer, a young, novice detective, Murakami (the simply brilliant Toshiro Mifune, who, of course, would prove to be a regular collaborator with Kurosawa) feels himself disgraced when he realises he has been pick-pocketed on a packed tram, the thief making off with his service pistol. Ashamed and preparing to likely be dismissed for this, instead he finds his stern but fair chief directing him to do what a detective should do – investigate. And so Murakami will follow one slender lead after another, trying to track down who has his missing weapon, and feeling immense guilt and responsibility when he learns it has already been used on a victim.

A quick summary like that, however, does not do any justice to this film – there’s so much more going on here, from the performance of the actors (not least Mifune), the remarkable cinematography that really gives you a flavour of that very particular period in time (post-war, but still under the Occupation, the streets a mix of the elegant and those still a mess from the war, and the semi-secret black markets, all under that blistering heat), and under that there are comments layered into the story about the state of Japan in this period, of the “apres guerre” (after the war) generation as the older characters refer to men Murakami’s age, but handled carefully because all films had to be approved by the occupying US forces of that time.

Some of the sequences I still found mesmerising to watch, even after some eight decades – one in particular, which sees a ragged figure in the remnants of a very worn WWII army uniform moving through hot, busy streets, exploring the black, markets, talking to the local sex workers, is almost ten minutes long and almost wordless, using a variety of angles and montages. As it turned out, this segment was filmed by Kurosawa’s friend and second unit director Ishirō Honda, who would later earn cinematic immortality with the now-iconic Godzilla movies (in the extras we learn much of this was actually filmed in a real black market location, with much risk to themselves).

It is a tribute to Mifune’s acting ability that it took me a couple of moments in this segment to realise it was actually him, working undercover. Gone was the nervous, polite, deferential novice Murakami, instead here was a grizzled, angry-looking war veteran, a man who radiates menace, his dark expression, his stance, all marking him as a man with a grudge to settle and a powder keg personality; it isn’t just the stubble on his face and his worn uniform that he adopts as a disguise, Mifune alters his entire body language, from posture to expression. It’s an absolute joy to watch an actor this good, captured so well by talented film-makers.

As I mentioned, this was made during the Occupation era following the Japanese surrender in WWII, and while unable to address that too directly, given the US censors wouldn’t pass anything seen as too critical, Kurosawa nevertheless works in some subtle commentary. Just as the classic Noir anti-hero of Western film is often a man damaged by his wartime experiences, so too Murakami. In one heart to heart with the veteran detective Satō (Takashi Shimura, who would become another Kurosawa regular), Murakami tells him he understands some of what drives the thief (and now murderer) , Yusa (Isao Kimura), because at one point, frustrated, angry and lost after the war, he could easily have become him, but instead he chose the path of joining the police.

This is simply a superb piece by a cast and crew at the top of their game. The 4k restoration presents it beautifully, in the original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, complete with a new optional commentary (by Japanese-Australian film-maker Kenta McGrath), a featurette with Kurosawa scholar Jasper Sharp discussing the work and its place in Kurosawa’s oeuvre, a 2002 Toho documentary on the film, and for the first pressing only, a special booklet will be included.

Stray Dog is available from the BFI on Blu-Ray, iTunes and Amazon Prime from January 27th, and can be pre-ordered from the BFI shop here

This review was originally penned for Live For Films