Rising Son: Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog

Akira Kurosawa’s contribution to cinema history is immeasurable. His influence is as impactful today as it was in his own lifetime, with his legendary films begetting legendary remakes; The Seven Samurai (1954) generates The Magnificent Seven (1960); The Hidden Fortress (1958) serves as the plot inspiration for Star Wars (1977); Yojimbo (1961) inspires A Fistful of Dollars (1964).  More recently, Ikiru (1952) was remade as Living (2022), and High and Low (1963) will see its own recreation in Spike Lee’s next “joint” Highest 2 Lowest (2025). This summer will see the re-releases of several Kurosawa films in theaters with 4K restoration. The film preservation of one cinema’s greatest auteurs is important so that each new generation of moviegoers may enjoy his career with the highest quality possible in the latest technical medium. Thematically, the restoration of Kurosawa’s filmography is analogous to the reconstruction of his home country Japan, post-World War II. This rectification sentiment is a significant theme in Kurosawa’s noir Stray Dog (1949).

The noir begins with the image of a panting mutt who serves as the film’s titular metaphor in this world of postwar criminality. Ironically, Kurosawa was falsely accused by an ASPCA member of injecting the animal with rabies in order to achieve his opening shot. The plot soon commences with rookie Detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) reporting himself to his superior for losing his loaded service pistol to a pickpocket. Desperate to retrieve his gun so that it may not fall into the hands of criminals, Murakami goes undercover to search the neighborhood slums for any clues as to his weapon’s whereabouts. In some of the movie’s most effective sequences, Kurosawa filmed actual black markets of contemporary Japanese culture to capture the young detective’s desperation to rectify this folly. Murakami encounters a world of true survival after a devastating war, a humbled civilization that subsists by any means necessary. Though no foreign forces are portrayed in the film, the sequence of Murakami scouring his society’s slums is a stark reminder that Stray Dog was released while Allied Powers were still in command of Japan. This is a defeated community in which each participant chooses to either recover or further deteriorate. Murakami’s veteran partner, Detective Satō (Takashi Shimura), states, “A killer’s like a mad dog,” as the stolen pistol is now in the hands of a murderer.

Much of Kurosawa’s success is due to how palatable his films are to Western audiences. Kurosawa, an expert craftsman of genre pictures, is specifically influenced by Western Hemisphere content including detective novels. For Stray Dog, Kurosawa’s chief influence is found in the works penned by Belgian writer Georges Simenon, famous for his Inspector Maigret mysteries. Through the genre of a police drama, Kurosawa investigates the duality of his society - of the dark emotions that inspire his characters to either turn cop or turn criminal. Murakami is not much different from the killer he hunts; his desperation to recover his weapon matches the desperation of the murderer to survive. As Murakami continues to search for his foe, he deliberates upon his enemy’s psychology, hyperaware that he is a detective chasing his own dark shadow. Murakami states, “They say there is no such thing as a bad man. Only bad situations.” Gifted with some of the film’s best dialogue, the older Satō replies, “We can’t forget the many sheep a lone wolf leaves wounded.” He further recommends to the junior detective to “leave psychoanalysis to the detective novels.”

Interestingly, Stray Dog was first written by Kurosawa and fellow writer Ryūzō Kikushima (their first collaboration together) as a novel. However, the novel was never intended for publication; instead, it was composed to help the process of characterization and storyboard creation for the eventual film. Kurosawa dispatched Kikushima to Tokyo Metropolitan Police to research cases to inspire Stray Dog’s plot. Together, they composed a story revolving around the contemporary debate of "après-guerre,” a French term that translates loosely to “postwar.” Kurosawa includes this French phrase in the film’s dialogue between Murakami and Satō as they discuss the rise of crime in the generation subsisting after the events of World War II. Thus, Kurosawa displays his talent for topical thought in this conscience-stricken crime drama.

There is a duality of locations presented in Stray Dog, especially in the filmed live settings. The inclusion of genuine locations, such as a baseball game inside a stadium, enhances Kurosawa’s utilization of an actual case for his plot inspiration. This was once a real crime committed in a community that enjoys entertainment like athletic sports. By juxtaposing the black markets against the baseball stadium, Kurosawa reveals the duality of his contemporary society. On one hand, the slums are “not fit for human habitation” (another Satō quote) but belong to those who wish to behave like the titular creature. On the other hand, the sight and sound of a crowd cheering on its favorite baseball players is an image of a returning noble society, albeit playing a distinctly American pastime.

Decades later, the international acclaim of Akira Kurosawa’s career is still amazing. The fact his film Rashomon (1950) earned the Academy Award for (what was called then) Honorary Foreign Language Film, only several years after the conclusion of World War II and near the Occupation of Japan’s conclusion, proves how art – specifically cinema – may repair a society’s image to the world. Stray Dog shows one of the great film directors coming into his own creative peak, prior to his international fame.

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