Rating: 
Summary: Another Kurosawa masterpiece.
Review: "Stray Dog" known in Japan as "Nora Inu" is one of Kurosawa's most well known early post-war film. Made during the latter half US occupation, it was subect to approval by the US military government before distribution. It obviously was approved.
The film is about a rookie cop whose gun is pickpocketed off of him while riding on a city bus. He then goes searching for it among in the seedy areas of town along with a higher ranking officer.
The movie is very well made and includes some excellent scenes. One interesting fact is that the scene of the dog panting in the opening credits sequence caused problems when an ignorant American woman believed that the dog's panting was caused by the dog being deliberately infected with rabies. She assumed that since the Japanese "were savages" (as she believed), that they'd be more than willing to such a thing. This is just an example of the rampant Anti-japanese sentiment that was still present even nearly half a decade after the end of the war. This is also mentioned in the commentary.
The film has some excellent special features including a half hour documentary on the film's production titled, "Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create" and audio commentray by author and Japanese film scholar, Stephen Prince. There is also extra material in the liner notes.
Fans of Kurosawa will love this release.
Rating: 
Summary: THEMATICALLY MORDANT, TECHNICALLY BRILLIANT
Review: A young Tokyo cop has his handgun stolen. Driven to obsession he follows the trail of the pickpocket through the choppy underworld of 50s Tokyo in an attempt to regain his "face". This deceptively simple story grows more complex as the man who gains possession of Mifune's handgun begins killing people and the cop starts to blame himself. Amid its intensely graphic buildup of the specious complications of the plot (which is achieved in true Kurosawa form through brilliant blends of images and sounds) the movie manages to couch messages of social and philosophical significance. An incredible atmospheric combination: of neo-noir and a murky mordant comedy. Highly recommended, if you can digest some mildly slow-paced scenes and black and white print.
Rating:
Summary: THEMATICALLY MORDANT, TECHNICALLY BRILLIANT
Review: A young Tokyo cop has his handgun stolen. Driven to obsession he follows the trail of the pickpocket through the choppy underworld of 50s Tokyo in an attempt to regain his "face". This deceptively simple story grows more complex as the man who gains possession of Mifune's handgun begins killing people and the cop starts to blame himself. Amid its intensely graphic buildup of the specious complications of the plot (which is achieved in true Kurosawa form through brilliant blends of images and sounds) the movie manages to couch messages of social and philosophical significance. An incredible atmospheric combination: of neo-noir and a murky mordant comedy. Highly recommended, if you can digest some mildly slow-paced scenes and black and white print.
Rating:
Summary: A mad dog only sees straight paths.
Review: Anybody who's seen any of Akira Kurosawa's films should not only see this one, but own it as well. Toshiro Mifune stars as Murakami, a young but troubled Tokyo homicide detective. In the opening sequence, his Colt is stolen from someone on a hot and crowded bus. Ashamed, he takes it upon himself to get the gun back at all costs, and in doing so goes undercover as a down-and-out war veteran. Then when he gets amazingly close to his suspect, he sees that he's only arrested the thief's subordinate and not the thief himself. However, he questions the girl until she's fet up with him and the heat of the room she's being interrogated in. That's when he calls upon larceny detective Sato, played by Takashi Shimura. His methods are slower, kinder, and less reckless than Murakami. They find that she doesn't know anything about the guns, but is linked to an even bigger criminal with the alias of Hondo, and wait at a baseball game to find him. After several methods and attempts that prove fruitless, his real name is announced over the loudspeakers and they have no trouble catching him. Then with him out of the way, Sato invites Murakami over for dinner to get to know each other better. Everything seems fine, until the next morning when a robbery/homicide occurs. A man's wife is found dead, and guess whose gun was used: it's Murakami's same Colt.
From there on out the real story begins, and Murakami's attempt to get a good first arrest becomes a nightmare of how to catch the killer before he tries anything else. Director Kurosawa was inspired by French crime novels, and even wrote this first as a novel itself. However, when he wrote the accompanying screenplay, it took him twice as long to finish it. This isn't just a simple "cat-and-mouse" crime thriller like you'd see in modern crap that pretends to be cleverly thought out. It really has a reason for so much crime and so many lowlifes to be walking about, and using WWII as a scapegoat is actually quite a realistic (and at the time very innovative) approach. People were desperate during those times, and post-war Japan was not exactly the # 1 travel destination in the world. If anything, this is a film about desperation and survival, the truest sense of Darwin's law of natural selection. Even the police are as desperate as dogs to assure that the most dangerous men are put away for good, and it's very evident in the final climatic showdown.
The DVD package is VERY cool, very chic, and perfect for the grittiness of the film. The menu is equally cool, but no trailer to be seen. There is a commentary, but don't listen to it on a late night, the moron will bore you to tears. However, to make up for it there's a 32-minute documentary about the film and Kurosawa's work overall, and a booklet from Kurosawa's autobiography. The Criterion Collection did a really good job with this one.
The only problem I have with the film itself is the soundtrack. Sure, the music does its job, but this movie demands something cooler.
There are many modern day examples of this film's influence. For example, the dinner scene is very closely related to that of "Lethal Weapon", where the older cop invites his younger partner, only to show up tomorrow to a murder. Then there's the taking of the cop's gun to kill people, like in "48 Hours". If you like either film, or detective films in general, then buy this movie. Good luck trying to find a video store that carries it for rental, but buy it despite the exorbitant amount for it. This is a very cool movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A good, not great, early Kurusawa
Review: But as with all his films of the occupation period, the look into Japan at the time is worth the price of admission. Compare the Japan of this film (food-rationing, unemployment, desperation, violent crime) to the thrusting 1960s Japan of 'High and Low'. The social message in Stray Dogs is curiously ambivalent.
Rating:
Summary: A Dog With A Gun
Review: Desperate man with a gun. Although I didn't find Stray Dog was as good as Rashamon, which is my favorite. I did think that this was another excellent movie by Kurosawa. I did think that the Post War Japan was another interesting setting for Kurosawa. Like his movies set during Japan's feudal period, a lawless time full of bandits and peril. As I imagine Tokyo would have been just 3 or 4 years after the war ended, with all the displaced people, namely soldiers (possibly a substitute for ronin?) roving around. Though at the time it wouldn't have been, Kurosawa sets his movie in a period of turmoil in his country, wonder if he realized this at the time, or acted upon it deliberatley, I feel that he must have. The man, Kusa is a stray dog, no promise or love in his life, roaming the streets of the inner city attempting to live some type of life. He becomes fed up with his down turned existence and in a sense becomes rabid, though desperate is closer. Only used rabid, because I wanted to keep up with the dog analogies. The final fight scene like the one in Rashamon is very clumsy, two desperate men battle it out, they do not have their wits about them, they thrash, they stumble, and fall, eventually becoming fatigued and exhausted, these two are not the graceful fight scenes of Seven Samarai. Anyway, Stray Dog is very Noir, is it circumstance that leads men down a bad path? Kurosawa certainly brings this question to our attention, but I cannot tell if he quickly dismisses this question or validates by having the cop (Murakami) looking for his stolen gun having had the same life changing experience. Though Murakami chose a different path than Kusa, the stray dog.
Rating:
Summary: Top Five Kurosawa
Review: Don't be fooled by the other reviews here: this is Kurosawa at his best and film-making of the highest quality. Yes, the print and the translation need to be cleaned up, but don't let that keep you away. The chemistry between Shimura and Mifune here beats that of any other screen duo I can name, and often Kurosawa's directing attains it's sublimest levels (the stack of steaming girls in the dance hall attic, for instance, and the elemental merging of back- and fore-ground during the violent standoff at the end, silent save for the tiny, separated sounds of communal harmony). But the best thing about *Stray Dog* is its literary-quality script. "When does a Stray Dog become a Mad Dog?" detective Sato (Shimura's character) asks. It is the pivotal question all post-war Japan needs answered, precariously balanced as it is between chaos and order. Which way will Japan go? Murakami (Mifune's character) chooses order, though he has suffered the same injustices others\ young veterans faced after the lost war. Murakami's alter-ego, however, the movie's facelesss-until-the-end villian, descends into a mental chaos, a self-collapse which could spread, Sato fears, bringing down society. Who's to blame for the instability is a question Sato believes unimportant and even dangerous -- but Murakami isn't sure. Watching Murakami wrestling with this question as he self-turtuously searches the dirtiest parts of the city is like watching a hero of old Romance trying to reconcile his demons before they claim his soul: no Victor Frankenstein here, however, but a Japanese Ishmael. The film is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Dog will hunt
Review: Few films capture the stifling, inescapable heat of a Japanese summer in the same way as "Stray Dog" ("Nora Inu.") When the showgirl Harumi collapses in a sweaty heap amongst the other dancers, desperately attempting to gain some relief, one can truly feel the insane heat, the pouring sweat and the apathetic sense of despair that accompanies the painful weather. She is a sympathetic companion to the opening shot of the panting dog, roasting in the blazing sun.
They are all dogs here. Det. Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) is a bold young pup, quick to cover his shame over losing his pistol with a snapping rage. Harumi (Keiko Awaji) is a sleek scavenger, taking what she can from whomever she can. Det. Sato (Takashi Shimura) is a wise old hound who has seen hot summers before, and knows when to lie in the shade. Together, they make an uneasy pack, hunting the bone that is Murakami's lost gun. With each murder committed with the weapon, the scene becomes more intense, the hunt more frantic. The dogs more willing to take chances. And make mistakes.
Easily one of his best films, Kurosawa takes the genre of Film Noir and spins it into the social commentary that was his vision. Devil or Angel, each character is a cool reflection of each other, with only circumstance and desperation turning a hero into a villain, or the other way around. He paints occupation Japan as a scrambling junk yard, a desperate place where you can rent a gun for a few hours to commit a crime, and your ration card is all you need for payment. Harry Lime ("The Third Man") would have made a killing in this dog-eat-dog environment.
The Criterion Collection DVD pays full tribute to this, Kurosawa's first masterpiece. Stephen Prince (author or Kurosawa book, "The Warrior's Camera") provides the commentary, as he did "Ikiru." Another fine documentary from the "Akira Kurosawa: It's Wonderful to Create" series is included, along with a selection from Kurosawa's own autobiography. All of these extras combine for a powerful package, providing insight and a deeper appreciation of this sharp movie.
Rating:
Summary: Homage & Echoes and Finally, Stubbornly Original.
Review: I am not a Japanese film historian, so others can elaborate on that aspect. When it started, I wasn't sure I would take to this film, but it draws you in inexorably. Shot on location in Tokyo, remarkably just 3 or 4 years after the end of WWII, it most reminds me of a Japanese Naked City, with echoes and moments reminiscent of other American gangster films all the way back to Public Enemy and The Roaring Twenties of the 30's. The location photography alone is fascinating in depicting the Japan of 1948 or 49. And the story progresses as a very young Toshiro Mifune wanders through various levels of that postwar society in search of the thief who stole his Colt. On hand also, is that wonderful actor in Kurosawa's repertory company that was the leader of the 7 Samurai, and here too, is the older & wiser mentor to Mifune. Finally, the movie wins you over for its own reasons. Though early, Kurosawa's composition, framing, and directorial skill is evident. The performances are fine. The atmosphere and location photography ground the film in reality. And it is a more complex film and story than it first appears. And, like early Ford, there is poetry amid the restrictions of budget and resources. And like early Ford, it presages what was to come. Good stuff if you've a mind for it. 5 stars for those folks.
Rating:
Summary: A consistently fascinating film
Review: I foung this to be an absolutely fascinating film on several levels. First, although we primarily associate Kurosawa with period films, this was one of his relatively few contemporary films. Along with the utterly phenomenal IKIRU (1952) and HIGH AND LOW (1963), it is one of his three most successful nonhistorical films. Nonetheless, for us in the early part of the 21st century, it possesses a great deal of almost documentary interest for glimpses into life in post-war Japan. Released in 1949, it depicts a Japan that had not yet begun the strong enonomic recovery of the 1950s. I found the numerous images of individuals struggling on the margins of economic survivability to be riveting. This was seen not merely in the "stray dog" who possessed the gun of the main character, but in many minor characters, not all of whom we actually see. One of the truly sad moments was when Takashi Shimura (familiar as the head samurai of SEVEN SAMURAI, the dying man in IKIRU, and the woodcutter of RASHOMON) explains to Toshiro Mifune how a thief's stealing the cash a woman had saved for her dowry probably meant that she would not have enough money saved again until she was an old maid, implying that the thief had stolen not merely her cash, but her chance of happiness in life as well. Second, seeing Toshiro Mifune playing a despondent, anxious, inexperienced, overly deferential detective was a completely new experience. It is a range of emotions that I had not previously seen him put on display in anyother role. I must add that I think most contemporary American viewers will find, perhaps, his character to be a little too groveling and impetuously stupid. My daughter watched this movie with me (though 14, she is a huge Kurosawa fan as well), and she felt very, very uncomfortable at the way he deferentially hung his head in shame before his superiors. (I should add that despite this, she loved the film as a whole as well.) The film was full of fascinating shots of private spaces that as a Westerner I found to be one of the most interesting things in the movie. When American films started being made in the 1950s that were at least partially set in Japan, the shots in people's homes often made them look as if they were display pieces, not like actual places where people would live. But the homes in STRAY DOG all looked lived in, like real abodes. But while all these things are good and fine, the movie in the end has to stand up as a piece of cinema, and it does so admirably. Although on one level not a great deal happens in the movie, Kurosawa manages to imbue the conflicts and struggles in the film with Shakespearean importance. He manages to bring home the point that people's lives and their own concerns are of infinite concern to them. And scene after scene that might have come off as trivial and unimportant instead are crucial and memorable, like the long scene in which Mifune sits in the apartment of a dancing girl and her mother, attempting to gain information about her quasi-boyfriend who is suspected of having and using Mifune's pistol. The camerawork in the film is flawless, and many of the scenes stay with you long after you have seen the film. I agree with the reviewer who emphasized the overwhelming sense of heat that the film communicates (the action all takes place in the middle of a heat wave). One scene in particular bears pointing out. In the climatic fight with the villain, we witness one of the least glamorized and romanticized fights in the history of the cinema. Neither man places tremendous fighting skills before the viewer. Neither looks particularly competent. When the fight is over, both men lay heaving and sweaty and dirty on the ground in the middile of a field. It is an utterly remarkable moment. Finally, after a few minutes, the thief begins to sob, less, one suspects, over having been caught, but over what his life has become. In short, a marvelous film. And very, very different than most of the films by which we know Kurosawa. I strongly recommend it.
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