Drunken Angel

Drunken Angel marks the first collaboration between Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune – a creative partnership that would go on to produce 16 cinematic masterpieces. Blending elements of film noir with social melodrama, Kurosawa portrays the struggles of Tokyo’s dockside slums in the bleak aftermath of World War II.

Mifune delivers a striking performance as a young gangster torn between self-destruction and the possibility of redemption, while Takashi Shimura plays the stoic doctor determined to save him. With its haunting imagery of malaria-infested swamps symbolizing decay and hopelessness, the film combines raw realism with poetic fatalism.

Drunken Angel is a fascinating, visually powerful, and deeply engaging work that already reveals the qualities that would make Kurosawa one of cinema’s greatest directors.

Running time: 102 minutes. Film with English subtitles.