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Drunken Angel

Yoidore tenshi

Japan

1948

98 Min
Black and White
1.33:1
Japanese
  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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DIR Akira Kurosawa

PROD Sojiro Motoki

SCR Keinosuke Uekusa, Akira Kurosawa

DP Takeo Ito

CAST Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Reizaburo Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure, Chieko Nakakita

ED Akikazu Kono

MUSIC Fumio Hayasaka

Synopsis

In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician. Set in and around the muddy swamps and back alleys of postwar Tokyo, Drunken Angel is an evocative, moody snapshot of a treacherous time and place, featuring one of the director’s most memorably violent climaxes. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Original

Akira Kurosawa

The son of an army officer, Kurosawa studied art before gravitating to film as a means of supporting himself. He served seven years as an assistant to director Kajiro Yamamoto before he began his own directorial career with Sanshiro Sugata (1943), a film about the 19th century struggle for supremacy between adherents of judo and jujitsu that so impressed the military government, he was prevailed upon to make a sequel (Sanshiro Sugata Part Two). Following the end of World War II, Kurosawa’s career gathered speed with a series of films that cut across all genres, from crime thrillers to period dramas. Among the latter, his Rashomon (1951) became the first postwar Japanese film to find wide favor with Western audiences. It was Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954), however, that made the largest impact of any of his movies outside of Japan. Although heavily cut for its original release, this three-hour-plus medieval action drama, shot with painstaking… read more

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Lorna Singh

13May12

Special for being the film that started it all---the greatest collaboration in film history.The setting,where children play in dirty swamps and streets,is perfect to showcase the ugliness and corruption of gangsters and others. The amazing Toshiro Mifune conveys so much,even with small gestures.

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Espen Nomedal

4Jan12

"A dog's a dog... It can't be changed" is one of doctor Shimura's perscriptions about the criminals in this ballad of two alcoholic men. How to be a part of society is no not matter of class on the operating table of director Kurosawa, as two falling angels - a doctor and a gangster struggles to live in a society as muddy as the swamps sourrounding them. A film with this kind of sense of responsibility is rare.

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Jesse Roy

28Dec11

So far, this is Akira Kurosawa's best-filmed movie. I actually like the filming and the scenery - especially the swamps - better than the film itself. However, it was a great film.

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Ryan Nichols

12Dec11

what an ending! reminded me a lot of what Scorcese would later do, looking at flawed characters, and the downfall of others. absolutely spectacular ending. the entire fight sequence was so tense. not Kurosawa's best at all, but i definitely see why it was his breakthrough.

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A tale of Oxymorons

By Rohit on December 4, 2010

Drunken Angel is an important movie in many ways. It is Tishoro Mifune’s debut film as well as the first in which Shimura and Mifune have acted together. Most importantly, this is Kurosawa’s take on…  read review

Untitled

By saliksh​ah on February 21, 2009

Akira Kurosawa’s complex treatment of the two lead characters in Drunken Angel (1948), Doctor Sanada (Takashi Shimura) and gangster Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune), is detailed, thoughtful and effective…  read review

Untitled

By asuraf on January 5, 2009

Akira Kurosawa explores one of his favorite themes, the elder and the disciple at odds and as one, in this landmark post-war production that past censorship despite its depiction of disease, poverty…  read review

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DVD

Buy the DVD from The Criterion Collection.