Akira Kurosawa

Stray Dog

Stray Dog

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side. Starring Toshiro Mifune as the rookie cop and Takashi Shimura as the seasoned detective who keeps him on the right side of the law, Stray Dog (Nora inu) goes beyond crime thriller, probing the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

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Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1949
  • 122 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #233

Special Features

  • High-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary by Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa
  • Thirty-two-minute documentary on Stray Dog from the series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, including interviews with director Akira Kurosawa, production designer Yoshiro Muraki, actor Keiko Awaji, and others
  • PLUS: An excerpt from Kurosawa’s book Something Like an Autobiography and an essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty

Cover by William Logan

Purchase Options

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa

AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa

DVD Box Set

25 Discs

$319.00

Out Of Print

Special Features

  • High-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary by Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa
  • Thirty-two-minute documentary on Stray Dog from the series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, including interviews with director Akira Kurosawa, production designer Yoshiro Muraki, actor Keiko Awaji, and others
  • PLUS: An excerpt from Kurosawa’s book Something Like an Autobiography and an essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty

Cover by William Logan

Stray Dog
Cast
Toshiro Mifune
Murakami
Takashi Shimura
Sato
Isao Kimura
Yusa
Keiko Awaji
Harumi
Reisaburo Yamamoto
Hondo
Noriko Sengoku
Girl
Eiko Miyoshi
Girl's mother
Reikichi Kawamura
Ichikawa
Yunosuke Ito
Theater manager
Minoru Chiaki
Stage director
Masao Shimizu
Nakashima
Fumiko Honma
Yusa's sister
Eijiro Tono
Yusa's brother-in-law
Katsuhei Matsumoto
Drinking-stall owner
Iida Choko
Kogetsu Hotel manager
Teruko Kishi
Ogin
Ichiro Sugai
Yayoi Hotel manager
Credits
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Assistant director
Ishiro Honda
Writers
Ryuzo Kikushima
Writers
Akira Kurosawa
Producer
Sojiro Motogi
Editing
Toshio Goto
Editing
Yoshi Sugihara
Cinematography
Asakazu Nakai
Art director
So Matsuyama
Assistant art director
Yoshiro Muraki
Music
Fumio Hayasaka
Sound
Fumio Yanoguchi
Sound effects
Ichiro Minawa
Lighting
Choshiro Ishii

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Explore

Akira Kurosawa

Writer, Director

Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa

Arguably the most celebrated Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa had a career that spanned from the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievement. His best-known films remain his samurai epics Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, but his intimate dramas, such as Ikiru and High and Low, are just as searing. The first serious phase of Kurosawa’s career came during the postwar era, with Drunken Angel and Stray Dog, gritty dramas about people on the margins of society that featured the first notable appearances by Toshiro Mifune, the director’s longtime leading man. Kurosawa would subsequently gain international fame with Rashomon, a breakthrough in nonlinear narrative and sumptuous visuals. Following a personal breakdown in the late sixties, Kurosawa rebounded by expanding his dark brand of humanism into new stylistic territory, with films such as Kagemusha and Ran, visionary, color, epic ruminations on modern man and nature.

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