Stray Dog (1949)

26Aug09

Stray Dog IMDB Link

Directed By: Akira Kurosawa

Written By: Akira Kurosawa & Ryuzo Kikushima

Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura

Kurosawa was famous for his love for western cinema, heck his favorite director of all time was John Ford. And one year before he exploded onto the world stage with Rashomon, a film that is still being studied and ripped off today, he made a noir detective film in Stray Dog.

Much like The Bad Sleep Well, it is incredible just how modern Stray Dog feels. A young brash detective teamed up with an old grizzled vet are hot on the trail of a serial killer who is terrorizing the streets of Japan. While on the hunt they are thrown into the seedy parts of Japan and we see just how much WW II has effected the people. Poverty, gambling, sex trade, it’s all steaming in the underbelly and Kurosawa lets you dive in and sweat in the filth. This is all shown in an amazing montage of deep focus panning shots dissolved and overlayed with close ups of Toshiro Mifune.

Like all things Kurosawa, the individual scene construction is well done throughout but there was one sequence in particular that I found really well done and very Hitchcock-esque. Not only does Kurosawa have a great sense for creating scenes but his overall understanding of the roller-coaster ride of emotion a film can produce is incredible as well. You never think to yourself “is this the end?” because it just feels like the ending.

Mifune’s character is at the train station and together with the audience is scanning everyone in the crowd. We know a few facts. We know the killer’s in a nice white suit, we know that his hand shakes sometimes, we know he’s carrying a gun and we know his feet should be muddy. The scene has an incredible amount of tension not only because we know he will blow Mifune’s character away if he realizes who he is but the soundtrack is simply Mifune whispering the facts  to himself coupled with close-ups/tilts/pans of body parts. You don’t even want to blink trying your hardest to spot the killer before the movie does.

This eventually leads to a fast push in with wide eyes on reveal followed by a quick chase. When they arrive in the woods something strange happens. Both are motionless with one pointing a gun at the other but piano music starts to play. Right as we raise an eyebrow Kurosawa shows us a house in the distance where a woman is playing a quaint melody. A gun shot is heard. The music halts as she goes to the window to see what the commotion is. She can’t see anything and goes back to playing. Still no sign of what’s happened. And then we see it, blood slowly trickling down Mifune’s characters hand and landing on top of a flower.

So good.

I know I’m in complete fanboy mode here but it’s stuff like this that I wait for in my constant stream of movie watching. Little scenes or movies that I’ve never heard of that blow me away. This detective story was not only way ahead of it’s time but it was made before he even had clout which is awesome. On top of all that, Stray Dog was just damn well made. There’s the suspense and good writing of the actual chase, there’s the chemistry and learning between the rookie and the vet and there’s the social angle of how crime comes about and which side one falls on. So good. Major props to Kurosawa on Stray Dog.

Filed under: Drama, Foreign, Thriller   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Documentary, Kurosawa, Mifune, Nora inu, Stray Dog