Japan
1948
98 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
Japanese
413
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.
| Doctor Sanada | Takashi Shimura |
| Matsunaga | Toshiro Mifune |
| Okada | Reizaburo Yamamoto |
| Nanae | Michiyo Kogure |
| Nurse Miyo | Chieko Nakakita |
| Director | Akira Kurosawa |
| Producer | Sojiro Motoki |
| Screenplay | Keinosuke Uekusa and Akira Kurosawa |
| Editing | Akikazu Kono |
| Cinematography | Takeo Ito |
| Lighting | Kinzo Yoshizawa |
| Music | Fumio Hayasaka |
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, Telluride codirector, and Mishima producer Tom Luddy. Those who have heard Donald’s Criterion interviews and commentaries . . .
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 nightclub. It was a setting that could have been found almost anywhere in Tokyo in 1948, or any other bombed-out Japanese city . . .
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