Akira Kurosawa

Stray Dog

Stray Dog

A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a 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’s 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 goes beyond crime thriller, probing the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

Share

Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1949
  • 122 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #233

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Audio commentary by Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa
  • Short documentary on Stray Dog, from the series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, featuring interviews with director Akira Kurosawa, production designer Yoshiro Muraki, actor Keiko Awaji, and others
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty and an excerpt from Kurosawa’s book Something Like an Autobiography

    Cover by William Logan and Jim McKendree

Purchase Options

Coming soon, available May 5, 2026

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

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Audio commentary by Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa
  • Short documentary on Stray Dog, from the series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, featuring interviews with director Akira Kurosawa, production designer Yoshiro Muraki, actor Keiko Awaji, and others
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty and an excerpt from Kurosawa’s book Something Like an Autobiography

    Cover by William Logan and Jim McKendree
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
Writer
Ryuzo Kikushima
Writer
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

Related Films

Current

Excess in Stray Dog
Excess in Stray Dog

By piling on naturalistic details to keep the heat constantly in our minds, Akira Kurosawa creates a visual and behavioral excess that highlights the fixation of his hero on retrieving his stolen gun.

By Chris Fujiwara

Essays — May 25, 2004
Stray Dog: Kurosawa Comes of Age
Stray Dog: Kurosawa Comes of Age

Stray Dog, the ninth film directed by Akira Kurosawa, is a detective story that’s also meant to function as a commentary on the desperate social conditions of postwar Japan: a kind of neorealist cop movie.

By Terrence Rafferty

Essays — May 25, 2004
Dancing in the Dark

Dark Passages

Dancing in the Dark

A powerful motif in film noir from around the world, dance is by turns a tool of seduction, a source of humiliation, and a symbol of the pleasures and risks of spectatorship.

By Imogen Sara Smith

Features — Jan 29, 2021
Who’s That Man? Mifune at 100
Who’s That Man? Mifune at 100

An actor of extraordinary physical presence and kinetic energy, Toshiro Mifune was the most widely recognized and transformative superstar in postwar Japanese cinema.

By Moeko Fujii

Features — Apr 3, 2020
Did You See This?

Clippings

Did You See This?
Last weekend, in conjunction with his new album, Blonde, musician and noted cinephile Frank Ocean released a limited-edition zine titled Boys Don’t Cry, which featured a list of his favorite films. Chungking Express, Eraserhead, Blood Simple, Solar…
— Aug 26, 2016
Bill Hader’s Top 10
Bill Hader’s Top 10

In compiling his top ten Criterion editions, Hader says, “I couldn’t pick ten . . . sorry. So I programmed Criterion double features, which is what I tend to do on Sunday nights anyway.”

— Mar 17, 2011
Bruce Goldstein’s Top 10
Bruce Goldstein’s Top 10

Recipient of a special New York Film Critics Circle award for visionary programming, Bruce Goldstein is the Repertory Program Director of New York’s Film Forum, for which he has created more than 350 film festivals and spearheaded the rereleases of

…
— Nov 20, 2008

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.

More Akira Kurosawa View All