"Stray Dog" (Language - Japanese) (1949) - Movie Classics

“Stray Dog” is a film noir with profound details of crime, psychology, guilt, duty and philosophy. It thrives on patience, heat and tiredness of one police officer Murakami (Toshirô Mifune), a man on edge losing his gun on a bus ride. It is loaded with seven bullets and by the end of the film all of those will be fired, most of them claiming innocent lives. Murakami is embarrassed and ready to be punished only to be directed by good superiors in solving the case than to accept defeat.

The heat fumes and sweat is dripping out and every one is drenched in irritation and gloominess. Murakami’s hunt from a petty pick pocket migrates in to a serial killing spree. He is relentless in going out on a stretch to find his gun and obviously the man who possesses it. The film which starts as a game of patience at the last part pulls us into one of the tensest, suspenseful and systematically choreographed sequence in film history.

This starts off as a regular investigative work which is supposed to be both adventurous and an easy digestive material for crime and punishment. But Kurosawa who is always profound even in his light weighed material packs up something holding true even for current times. It talks about gun culture and the responsibility it bores on the owner and how it can root up into something antagonistic about it. It is a strong lesson on a weapon behaving based on its handler.

There is a veteran cop Sato (Takashi Shimura), twenty five years in the service and he has his wisdom to share with the rookie Murakami. He works laboriously but taking it as easy it can be. He is cool as a cucumber in scorching heat. While both are from different times, Murakami still shows patience with a sign of irritation. His handling of it is different from Sato. Murakami is restless and cannot place himself in one place. In a baseball game they need to arrest an individual who holds the key piece to reach the killer a bit more. Murakami is continuously on watch over the guy but Sato is enjoying the game. But when the time comes, it is Sato’s perfect plan which isolates the armed men from a crowd of civilians.

When Murakami meets Sato, Sato appears to be the cool headed and arrogant cop at sight. Strangely Murakami does not judge rather follows the orders and has an ear for this experienced investigator. Sato is the person every one would love to work under. It does not necessarily be in the field of cop but any field of work; it is rare to find a mentor, friend and an acquired skilled worker as Sato. Sato knows how to treat a rookie. He treats him with respect and sheds the timely advice at timely manner. He rewards them by taking a beer at his house in leisure.

It is a cop movie and the perspective of a criminal. It shows the development of a criminal and how his/her mind works and his/her motivation to keep on continuing. The rage which happened in both the killer and Murakami has stemmed into opposite direction. One has accepted the unfairness of the world and tries to make a difference even if it is miniscule in tackling the evil. Another one amplifies the rage as a drug and feeds it through the desire for his lover, the show girl Harumi (Keiko Awaji).

It is silence and score playing it notes on the summer heat which has dried throats and sweats on our faces angling into the deepest moments of suspense and philosophy. Patience gets a definition on how to depict over in films. There is a long tailing of Murakami of his first clue, and then he throws himself on to the streets for days lying, eating and sleeping on it followed later by the baseball match; all those makes us impatient but the characters stay alert. We want them to give up for the scene to progress.

There are poetic shots of sweaty show girls lying in the humid basement of a stage, there is a wound dripping blood to water the flower and there is sun shining directly over Murakami and Sato. Sato between his questioning and observation wets his handkerchief with his sweat while Murakami is not even peaceful in wiping it off legibly. This film building up as a crime noir shifts the gear to enormous speed to keep us on our toes as they move closer to the killer.

Mifune young, fast and humble livens up those traits on Murakami. Takashi on the other hand forms a base for his anchor role in “Seven Samurai” later with Kurosawa. The dialogues are not artificial but well articulated. It is not a decoration but a righteous approach on to the characters and situations they are in. It through the first half tests us with the impatience it puts on the detectives and as it nears the end knocks us off with a look on the system of crime and philosophy.