Akira Kurosawa (director), Stray Dog, 1949. 122 min.
Tokyo is a city that is always changing. Old buildings are constantly being torn down and new ones put up. As I write, the 97-year old Meiji Jingu Stadium is at the risk of facing the wrecking ball, to be replaced by a commercial complex. But if you look down an alleyway, or walk through a quiet neighbourhood, you might still run across an old home or shop that has withstood earthquakes, fires, war and "progress". These structures are a time capsule, and much like Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog ιθ―η¬ (1949), they are a glimpse into old Tokyo. The film doesn't exactly make me nostalgic for a time and place I don't remember (it was definitely rough and tumble), but it does make me curious. It is also an entertaining and thought-provoking film.
Mention Japanese cinema today, most people will probably think of anime; mention Japanese cinema of the past, people will probably think of the Godzilla films and maybe Akira Kurosawa's jidaigeki (period dramas). The director is scarcely known by young Japanese today and it was his historical pictures that garnered the most acclaim and awards, but his gendaigeki (contemporary-set films) are worthy of attention and Stray Dog is certainly among them as a tight little masterpiece.
The film opens with a panting dog in the middle of a heatwave. The weather is almost palpable to the viewer. Perhaps only Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) comes close to this Japanese master in portraying the heat and tension of summer in the city, along with capturing the spirit of the times. For Lee, it was Brooklyn in the 80s. For Kurosawa, it was Tokyo in 1949. Only four years after being reduced largely to rubble and ash, the city is being rebuilt, but crime and the black market are still rampant. Broken and idle men, still wearing their battered military caps, who have seen unimaginable horrors in war, wander the streets. Given that the youngest people alive at this time would be in their 80s today, it's an era that is quickly fading from first-hand memory, which makes this film all that more worth seeing, not to romanticise the past, but so as not to forgot it.
Stray Dog stars Toshiro Mifune. He and Kurosawa had a long collaborative relationship over 16 films. The actor could easily play a good or bad man, often a combination of both. In Drunken Angel (1948), for example, he played a yakuza gangster. In Stray Dog, he is on the other side of the law, playing a cop, named Murakami, desperately trying to recover his pistol which has been stolen from him on a crowded trolley. The film is as much a police procedural as it is a thriller as Murakami and his partner, masterfully played by another long-time collaborator, Takeshi Shimura, sort through mugshots and question suspects, but the stakes are raised when the gun is linked to a number of crimes.
Mifune is every bit as riveting in his role as is in the characters he would play in such acclaimed films as Rashomon (1950), The Seven Samurai (1954), and Yojimbo (1961). It's not just his strikingly handsome and tall appearance, it's also his subtle gestures, such as the wringing of his hands as he impatiently waits for a suspect to arrive.
As much as Mifune and Shimura's performances in Stray Dog should be lauded, Keiko Awaji, in her film debut, deserves immense credit for her portrayal as a gangster's girlfriend, as should Isao Kimura as the villain, a character, who as another combat veteran, has more in common with Murakami than either would probably care to admit.
Ishiro Honda, better known for his Godzilla and Mothra films, served as Kurosawa's assistant and second unit director, overseeing a key city street scene, reminiscent of Jules Dassin's The Naked City (1948). Throw in a great script by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima, and you have a very exciting film. However, Stray Dog is more than just a well-made thriller and forerunner to the buddy cop movie. It is an example of Japan's contribution to the film noir genre. And what could symbolise Japan's defeat, disarmament, emasculation, and occupation more than a missing gun? It is also a window into a lost era when trams crisscrossed the city. Now Tokyo only has one tram line. Keep an eye out also for a major scene at the long-since demolished Kurakuen baseball stadium.
Stray Dog will transport you into a lost time. While other films of the Show Era 1926–1989 may have garnered more attention, Stray Dog might surprise you. Give it a try, especially If you are looking for a break from anime, monsters, swords, and samurai.
How to cite: Dutch, Jeremiah. "Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog as a View into Post-war Tokyo." Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 9 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/9/stray-dog.
As an American who has called Japan home for nearly 25 years, Jeremiah Dutch's writing crosses both cultures. He has written about such diverse topics as horror films and climbing Mt. Fuji. He was born and raised in the northeast of the United States. While still an undergraduate, he wrote for The Haverhill (Massachusetts) Gazette and the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald. In 1997, Jeremiah earned a BA in English from the University of New Hampshire and moved to Japan to teach English the following year. In 2007 he earned a MS.Ed in Education from Temple University and for over seventeen years he has taught at the post-secondary level while continuing to write academic articles, fiction and non-fiction. Last year a short piece, Zen Failure in Kyoto won an Honourable Mention in the Seventh Annual Writers in Kyoto Competition. This excerpted and adapted from his novel-in-progess, Gaijin House: Or Transported Souls in the Motel of Regret. Jeremiah currently lives in Yokohama with his wife and two daughters. When not writing, teaching, or spending time with his family, he enjoys reading, exercise, and following baseball.
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