Drunken Angel Film Still

Drunken Angel

Akira Kurosawa

 
Drunken Angel Criterion DVD

DVD

1 Disc

SRP: $39.95

Criterion Store price:$31.96

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  • Japan
  • 1948
  • 98 minutes
  • Black and White
  • 1.33:1
  • Japanese
  •  
  • Spine #413

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.

Cast & CreditsOpen

Cast

Doctor SanadaTakashi Shimura
MatsunagaToshiro Mifune
OkadaReizaburo Yamamoto
NanaeMichiyo Kogure
Nurse MiyoChieko Nakakita

Credits

DirectorAkira Kurosawa
ProducerSojiro Motoki
ScreenplayKeinosuke Uekusa and Akira Kurosawa
EditingAkikazu Kono
CinematographyTakeo Ito
LightingKinzo Yoshizawa
MusicFumio Hayasaka

Disc Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary featuring Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie
  • A 30-minute documentary on the making of Drunken Angel, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
  • Kurosawa and the Censors, a new, 25-minute video piece that looks at the challenges Kurosawa faced in making Drunken Angel
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by cultural historian Ian Buruma and excerpts from Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography

From the CurrentView the Current »

Film Essays

Drunken Angel: The Spoils of War

By Ian BurumaNovember 19, 2007

The set for Akira Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel (1948) consisted of a filthy sump surrounded by ruined buildings, shabby wooden houses, and the facade of a sleazy Read more »


Clippings

Donald Richie Live!

May 06, 2009

Donald Richie recently came through the United States on his eighty-fifth-birthday tour, and along the way he stopped in Berkeley for a conversation with longtime friend Read more »