Drunken Angel

Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura as Matsunaga and Doctor Sanada.

"Drunken Angel" was my first Kurosawa film and given his reputation as a filmmaker I came in with high expectations. I definitely left the screening room satisfied and look forward to seeing Kurosawa's more ambitious and famous works later this semester.

For those of you who didn't see it, here's a synopsis from IMDb:

After a battle with rival criminals, a small-time gangster is treated by an alcoholic doctor in post-war Japan. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster's tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment for it. The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster's former boss is released from prison and seeks to take over his gang once again. The ailing young man loses his status as gang boss and becomes ostracised, and eventually confronts his former boss in a battle to the death.

 In my eyes, "Drunken Angel" was a character study focusing primarily on Doctor Sanada.

From the very beginning, we see Sanada's struggle with alcoholism and its effects on his family and professional life. Kurosawa never tries to depict him as a bad person, just a seriously flawed human being who wants to do whatever he can to help the patients in his devasted post-WWII community. Doctor Sanada's character reminds us that there is a dark side to every human being, no matter how good-hearted, intelligent, or admired they seem. This also makes Doctor Sanada easily the most relatable character in the film because we see a small part of him in ourselves.

Reisaburo Yamamoto as yakuza boss Okada.

The doctor is also by far the most developed character in the movie. The other characters are hardly given much of a backstory. All we know of Mastunaga is that he is a stubborn, hedonistic yakuza with tuberculosis. Okada is a completely one dimensional character who is only there to move the plot forward. Something interesting that I found on IMDb was that Kurosawa had originally intended for Doctor Sanada to have the only starring role in the film but was so impressed by Mifune's (Matsunaga's) performance that he decided to give him more lines.

Even though they got equal screen-time, I was much more fascinated with Doctor Sanada than with Matsunaga. Sanada epitomizes the anti-hero and creates a wonderful dichotomy between his alcoholism and his constant nurturing. He is a man that devotes his life to taking care of others but ironically cannot take care of himself.