I can't believe we hadn't seen Drunken Angel (1948) until now. It was Kurosawa's first film with Toshiro Mifune - and one of Mifune's best performances. And he isn't even the star.
The star, the titular angel, is Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai), an outspoken, hard-drinking doctor. His office is in a poor neighborhood, centered around a stinking open sewer that the kids like to play in.
He meets Mifune when he comes in with a wound from a fight with some other gangsters. He is rough with Mifune, disgusted with his bravado, telling him he doesn't need a painkiller, because gangsters are supposed to be able to take it. But he notices that Mifune has a bad cough, and tells him he should get an X-ray, to check for tuberculosis.
There is a bit of cat-and-mouse between doctor and gangster, with gangster refusing to get checked, and the doctor accusing him of being a coward. He finally caves when a young girl the doctor has been treating shows up to report on her good progress - Mifune has to be at least as brave and strong as a schoolgirl. But the gangster lifestyle will make it hard for him to heal.
Through this all, Mifune is amazing - feral, cat-like, dressed in gaudy Western clothes. His expressions, from smile to sneer to grimace, reminded me a lot of Humphrey Bogart, to the point where I wonder if it was deliberate. We also get to see him cutting a rug with a taxi dancer, and he looks good. Shimura is also great, and I at least loved seeing his classic headrub.
Kurosawa also adds more than a touch of stylization to the direction. There is a guitar player who strums a little tune by the side of the sewer, and some of the characters move in rhythm with it, a subliminal dance.
Now, one of my favorite Kurosawa's.
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