As the Tokyo Metropolitan Police struggle to rebuild order out of the chaos of Japanese defeat in WWII, a rookie detective (Mifune) loses his police-issued pistol, only to find that it has been used as a murder weapon. He sets out on a personal vendetta to solve the crime committed with his own gun in a Japanese noir film that explores the underbelly of postwar Japanese society. True to the reality of its era, this film includes scenes shot via hidden camera in Tokyo’s most notorious black market. (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1949, 122 min., b&w) In Japanese with English subtitles
Introduced by Rob Buscher, University of Pennsylvania Asian American Studies Program, Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia
