Drunken Angel (酔いどれ天使, Yoidore tenshi) is a 1948 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It stars Takashi Shimura as an alcoholic doctor in postwar Japan who treats a young, small-time hood named Matsunaga (Toshirō Mifune, in his first role working with Kurosawa), after a gunfight with a rival syndicate. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster with tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment for it. The two enjoy an uneasy friendship unt...
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Drunken Angel (酔いどれ天使, Yoidore tenshi) is a 1948 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It stars Takashi Shimura as an alcoholic doctor in postwar Japan who treats a young, small-time hood named Matsunaga (Toshirō Mifune, in his first role working with Kurosawa), after a gunfight with a rival syndicate. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster with 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 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, while his life is further endangered by his gangster lifestyle.
Kurosawa considered the film to be the first that he was able to direct without interference from government. The film showed Japanese audiences the seamy underworld (Yakuza) of Japanese society for the first time. It was also unusual because the star was an anti-hero....
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