Stray Dog (1949)

Highly Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 野良犬

Director: Kurosawa Akira

Writers: Kikushima Ryūzō, Kurosawa Akira

Cinematographer: Nakai Asakazu

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Mifune Toshirō, Shimura Takashi, Awaji Keiko, Miyoshi Eiko, Honma Fumiko, Kimura Isao, Chiaki Minoru, Sugai Ichirō, Shimizu Gen

A young homicide detective’s search for his stolen pistol becomes ever more frantic when it emerges that it has been used in a series of armed robberies, leaving him with great feelings of grief and guilt, not helped by the sweltering Tokyo summer, in Kurosawa’s masterfully composed, palpably tense post-war thriller-cum-socially conscious police procedural. Iain.Stott