Drunken Angel

For the song by Lucinda Williams, see Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Drunken Angel
Original Japanese theatrical poster
Directed by	Akira Kurosawa
Produced by	Sojiro Motoki for Toho
Written by	Akira Kurosawa Keinosuke Uegusa
Starring	Takashi Shimura Toshirō Mifune Reisaburo Yamamoto Noriko Sengoku
Music by	Ryoichi Hattori Fumio Hayasaka
Cinematography	Takeo Ito
Editing by	Akira Kurosawa
Distributed by	Toho
Release date(s)	April 27, 1948
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Drunken Angel (酔いどれ天使, Yoidore tenshi^?) is a 1948 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is notable for being the first of sixteen film collaborations between director Kurosawa and actor Toshirō Mifune.

Plot

It stars Takashi Shimura as an alcoholic doctor in postwar Japan who treats a young, small-time hood named Matsunaga (Toshirō Mifune), after a gunfight with a rival syndicate. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster with tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment (and quit boozing and womanizing). The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster's former boss, Okada, who is also the former abusive boyfriend of the doctor's female assistant, is released from prison and seeks to take his gang over once again. The sick young man then stops following the doctor's advice, slips back into old habits and threatens to kill him. Matsunaga realizes that Okada is not a true friend, and that the big Yakuza crime boss is merely using Matsunaga as a pawn to be given up to the rival gang. When the doctor leaves his house to go report on Okada to the police, despite the doctor's orders to remain in bed, Matsunaga slips out to confront Okada (who has also managed to steal Matsunaga's girlfriend Nanae) but Matsunaga is killed in the ensuing knife fight. The film ends with a local shop-owner woman who had feelings for Matsunaga planning to take Matsunaga's ashes to be buried on her farm, far from the corrupt and dirty city, and the doctor happily learning that one of his younger patients has been fully cured of tuberculosis.

Toshirō Mifune's experience in the Japanese army was so recent that he looked the role of a man emaciated from tuberculosis.

Production

While looking for an actor to play Matsunaga, Kurosawa was told by one of the casting directors about Mifune, who was auditioning for another movie where he had to play an angry character. Kurosawa watched Mifune do this audition, and was so amazed by Mifune that he cast him as Matsunaga. On the film's Criterion Collection DVD, Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie comments that Kurosawa was impressed by the athletic agility and "cat-like" moves of Mifune, which also had bearing in his casting.

Censorship issues in Drunken Angel are covered extensively in the supplemental documentary to the Criterion Collection DVD by Danish film scholar Lars-Martin Sorensen, entitled Kurosawa and the Censors, available on The Criterion Collection DVD release of the film.^[1] Produced and released during the American occupation in Japan, the Drunken Angel screenplay had to comply with a censorship board issued by the U.S. government. The board did not allow criticism of the occupation to be shown in Japanese films at that time.

Kurosawa slipped several references to the occupation, all of them negative, past the censors. The opening scene of the film features unlicensed prostitutes known as "pan pan" girls, who catered to American soldiers. The gangsters and their girlfriends all wear Westernized clothing and hairstyles. Kurosawa was not allowed to show a burned-out building in his black-market slum set,^[2] but he did heavily feature the poisonous bog at the center of the district. English-language signage was also not allowed, but the markets on set have several examples of English usage on their signs. The dance scene in the nightclub features an original composition ("Jungle Boogie", sung by Shizuko Kasagi) with lyrics by Kurosawa, satirizing American jazz music.^[3] The censorship board was unable to catch these breaches due to overwork and understaffing.^[3]

Music

Kurosawa used music to provide contrast with the content of a given scene. In particular was his use of The Cuckoo Waltz by J. E. Jonasson. During filming, Kurosawa's father died. While he was in a sad state, he heard The Cuckoo Waltz playing in the background, and the whimsical music made him even more depressed.

Kurosawa decided to use this same effect in the film, at the low point in the life of Matsunaga, when the character realizes that he was being used all along by the crime boss. Kurosawa had the sound crew find the exact recording of The Cuckoo Waltz that he had heard after his father died, and had them play the instrumental beginning of the song repeatedly for the scene in which Matsunaga walks down the street after leaving the crime boss.^[3]

Cast

• Takashi Shimura as Doctor Sanada
• Toshirō Mifune as Matsunaga
• Reisaburo Yamamoto as Okada
• Michiyo Kogure as Nanae
• Chieko Nakakita as Nurse Miyo

References

1. ^ The Criterion Collection | Drunken Angel by Akira Kurosawa | Special Features
2. ^ From Sorensen's documentary, showing footage of censorship notes written on the Drunken Angel screenplay.
3. ^ ^{a b c} From the documentary, Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, available on The Criterion Collection DVD.

External links

• Drunken Angel at the Internet Movie Database
• Drunken Angel at AllRovi
• (Japanese) Drunken Angel at the Japanese Movie Database
• DVD Review: BFI - Region 2 - PAL