What to expect
Akira Kurosawa uses a procedural search to connect personal guilt, urban observation, and post-war scarcity. The partnership between an anxious rookie and an experienced detective gives the investigation moral as well as physical momentum.
How to ease in
The long search passages are part of the film’s method, placing Murakami inside the city he is trying to read. Track the gun’s consequences rather than every intermediary.
Heads-up
A stolen police pistol sends a young detective through the heat and desperation of post-war Tokyo.
His guilt over the lost pistol makes Murakami carry another man's crime as though it were his own, drawing him deeper into the city. Two men can emerge from the same war and arrive in completely different places.
Open the note ↓
His guilt over the lost pistol makes Murakami carry another man's crime as though it were his own, drawing him deeper into the city. Two men can emerge from the same war and arrive in completely different places. I still could not decide whether it was fair to explain that difference only by personal strength or weakness.
— Momo
Credits & versions
- Cast
- Toshiro Mifune · Takashi Shimura · Keiko Awaji · Eiko Miyoshi
Version map
Where to go next
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