It’s a brutal day in Tokyo. Amidst the crumbling post-war city is Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), a recently-promoted homicide detective. In the overwhelming sticky heat, he’s on an overcrowded bus, the waft of stale perfume and a screaming baby creating an unbearable atmosphere. As he finally exits, he realizes his gun has been stolen. Despite chasing the assailant, Murakami comes up short, unable to get his weapon back.
For many, it would stop there. But in Akira Kurosawa’s stellar 1949 thriller Stray Dog, Murakami cannot let it go. Mortified that he’d allow himself a lapse in judgment and awareness that led to the theft of his police gun, he goes undercover into Tokyo’s seedy underbelly, infiltrating criminal networks in a manic mission to try and find the person who stole from him. Kurosawa’s film examines the caustic nature of crime; with each step Murakami takes into the criminal underground, the more questionable his own behaviour becomes. His only hope seems to be Satō (Takashi Shimura), the steady, older officer he’s been paired with on the case.
