Stray Dog – Nora Inu
It is hard to imagine that the greatest of directors have had humble beginnings. After watching Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Akahige, The Bad Sleep Well (and so on) and the exquisite style in each and every movie, it never crossed my mind that even the great Mr. Kurosawa might have had a few ‘earlier’ movies.
Last week, when I was window shopping for nothing at the local mall, I went through the second hand Japanese DVD collection in a store there. I found one of the movies that I have been looking for in a while ‘The Sword of Doom’ and along with that there was this other DVD of a movie called Nora Inu (Stray Dog) directed by Mr. Kurosawa and starring none other than Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura. I picked it up as the Sword of Doom did not have English subtitles.
Japanese Poster
Nora Inu is the 7th movie of Mr. Mifune and the 9th of Mr. Kurosawa. This was their third collaboration together. Needless to say I was excited. Nora Inu remains one of the most impressive Film Noir movies I have seen. Mr. Kurosawa himself has acknowledged the influence of the works of Georges Simenon, on this movie of his.
Nora Inu revolves around a young detective of the Tokyo police department, Murakami, played by Toshiro Mifune. The story is about his travails as his gun is stolen from him and a series of crimes that take place using that gun. As Murakami hunts around the street of Tokyo, he ends up chasing the ‘stray dog’ that has taken the gun and is now using it to commit various crimes. Assisting him in his search is the wise older detective Sato, played by Takashi Shimura.
Murakami disguises himself as a war veteran and scrounges the underbelly of the city to find a clue that would take him to the person who has his gun. In an elaborate sequence depicting the search we get a glimpse into what might have been Murakami’s past. He might have lived on the streets of Tokyo before he gets the job of a detective. His experience is the Japanese military still shows on him as the senior inspector reminds Murakami to take things a little easy.
The senior inspector appreciates the situation of Murakami and pairs him up with Sato. It is up to Sato as the experienced of the two to keep Murakami in check. When Murakami and Sato unravel the clues behind the perpetrator of the crimes, a strange similarity to Murakami is revealed. The criminal is a war veteran and is disgruntled with the world as he as nothing but bad memories of his life from the war.
To quote from an article on http://www.criterion.com about Nora Inu by Terrence Rafferty:
In essence, Stray Dog is the story of a young detective chasing his own shadow. It’s a highly stylized coming-of-age narrative—a moral tale disguised as a thriller.
Stray Dog English poster
Toshiro Mifune is excellent as Murakami but it is Takashi Shimura as Sato that steals the scenes from him whenever they are together on screen. It is possible that since this is one of the earlier movies of his the newbie detective character suited him completely. Also, I was more than happy not to see him in a samurai costume. Not that I have anything against it but it is always a refreshing change.
The presence of an overwhelming weather is distinctly captured in Kurosawa movies. You cannot escape from it. Even in this movie, the weather is humid, hot and everyone is sweating and looking form some way to quench their thirst. Added to the discomfort the weather causes , there is the tension of the lost ammunition that Murakami is looking for. There is rain: which you almost always see in a Kurosawa movie, for a brief period and you can feel the relief even if you are just watching the movie. But, the weather again goes back to its ruthless humid nature, bringing out quick irritation and the reactions to discomfort among the characters involved in the story.
The documentary style shots of Tokyo streets and regular life, the details of procedures within the police department, a baseball game all are woven seamlessly into a thriller. The post war depression is evident in the city and as well as its dwellers. There is a hint of the underbelly of the city and we keep seeing it around but never get into the depth of it. We also see the a glimpse of the personal life of inspector Sato. This presentation of using hints and not delving into details in a lot of aspects is something that we see in a lot of Kurosawa’s later movies.
I would highly recommend this to all. This is one of the least spoken masterpieces of Akira Kurosawa.
Tags: Akira Kurosawa, Japanese Cinema, My Favourites, World Cinema
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In one of the scenes when Toshiro Mifune san is looking for the gun, a radio is playing a tune which has been used later in films by Raj Kapoor !!!
GK
You are right
. We thought it was only us that felt that way. Sarang and I heard that tune again and again. Do you know if that is a trdaitional Japanese tune, or specifically created for the film?
Damn…i was about to write an article on STRAY DOG.One of the underrated movie of Kurosawa like the Dreams
http://passionforcinema.com/akira-kurosawa%e2%80%99s-dreams/
@Debashri-Sarang
Well i have seen the film in 1989,i.e 20 years back, as far as i know it is a well known Russian folklore tune which even Emir Kusturica has used in his films !!!
GK