Drunken Angel - Criterion Collection (1959)

a fine early Kurosawa film

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Drunken Angel released in 1948 under the Japanese title "Yoidore tenshi" is Akira Kurosawa's seventh film.

It is about a gangster being treated for tuberculosis by an alcoholic physician. After one of the gangster's associates is released from prison, he tries to take over the syncicate and a fight ensuses for leadership. The film's final scene is well known and memorable.

This release contains some excellent special features. It includes a making of documentary which was part of a series of documentaries on the making of many Kurosawa films. Also included is audio commentary by Donald Richie, and a very informative documentary titled "Kurosawa and the Censors" which describes the process of how the the film had rewrites because of the censorship Japanese cinema was put under by the American occupation.

This is a great film and remains one of his best known films of the 1940's March 9, 2008

A doctor that makes you cheer for the bad guy.

Most reviews of Drunken Angel characterize it as the story about a good-hearted but flawed doctor and his gangster patient. I've watched this film closely many times and I disagree that the doctor is well intentioned. Surprised by this conclusion? Read on.

Carefully watch the response that the doctor shows to the gangster throughout the film. First, he refuses to use an anesthetic on the gangster's hand when he removes a bullet. Interestingly, the audience learns of Matsunaga's strength against pain, and learns of the doctor's willingness to inflict it.

The film then shows various scenes where the doctor goads his patient over the gangster's fear of tuberculosis, and the gangster's predictable response is anger toward the "treatment." The senior doctor from the hospital eventually has to ask the alcoholic doctor why he did not help Matsunaga when the gangster humbled himself and asked for help. All the alcoholic doctor can do is to ask for more alcohol -- because he drank all the pure ethanol alcohol that was provided to him for use on patients.

When the gangster is greatly sick and must stay at the clinic to heal, the doctor announces that he will call on the police to protect all involved from a rival gangster. Involving police in a gangland dispute violates every code of conduct known to Matsunaga, and he must flee. Did the doctor know better? Yes, at an earlier point in the film he admits that Matsunaga reminds him of his own youth. Like Carlito Brigante of Carlito's Way, which is another film about a gangster trying to go straight, it is the doctor who cannot resist his old gangster instincts and becomes locked into a running conflict with Matsunaga.

Kurosawa understood that to make the film work as a story the audience had to like the gangster and dislike the doctor. This is a reversal that Japanese audiences had never seen before, and the actors and director were able to accomplish the feat. As the film closes, the audience grieves Matsunaga's tragic death while the film score and stage choreography move in unison to maximize the impact. The final fight and death of Matsunaga is considered classic cinematography worldwide. Matsunaga finally escapes his gangster life through death.

There is another aspect to Drunken Angel that most people forget: it is one of several Kurosawa films with a medical and public health aspect to it. Other films like Ikuru, Red Beard, the Silent Duel, and the Most Beautiful, also include sickness and medicine prominently in their plots. Where Kurosawa's interest in medicine originated is not well addressed in his biographical materials. By contrast, Kurosawa's ability to direct important films on Judo fighting likely came from experience within Kurosawa's own family. Throughout the years of imperial rule, Akira Kurosawa's father headed a public high school that specialized in martial arts training for young Japanese. Possibly it was the death of three older brothers and one older sister (whom he called, "little big sister")that spurred Kurosawa's interest in medicine and health.
December 23, 2007

scruffy, alcoholic angels

Filmed only three years after the end of World War II, Kurosawa Akira's Drunken takes place within the filthy confines of shanty town marketplace where a heavily polluted swamp dominates the scenery. Within this black market, gangsters rule through their money and weapons, controlling the flow of alcohol, drugs, and rations. However, even within such a dismal place there are some bright spots, even if that bright spot is an alcoholic, scruffy doctor.

Drunken Angel opens with Matsunaga, Mifune Toshiro, coming to the office of Dr. Sanada. He claims that his hand was accidentally slammed in a door, and when the doctor notices that it is also bleeding, he states that there was also a nail. Dr. Sanada, without using painkillers, digs into the wound with a pair of tweezers and eventually finds a bullet and he eventually cleans the wound up and bandages it. Because he has a cough, Matsunaga asks the doctor to give him some medicine. However, the doctor states that Matsunaga should get himself checked for tuberculosis since his "high lifestyle" leaves him a prime candidate to catch the disease. Dr. Sanada does a halfhearted examination with his stethoscope, it is halfhearted because x-rays are necessary to detect the beginnings of tuberculosis, and he soon discovers a fist-sized hole in Matsunaga's lungs. Matsunaga is angered by the news, but this occurrence soon begins a tenuous friendship between Dr. Sanada and Matsunaga. The often drunk doctor not only wants to save Matsunaga from his tuberculosis, but from the environment in which he lives: as a member of the yakuza he is tied to a feudalistic code of "honor" that ties him to a continuous circle of murder and revenge. However, there is something else as well that the doctor hopes to save Matsunaga from.

After World War II came to a close, The Occupation Forces led by SCAP, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers controlled basically all forms of media, including books and films. When a new film was beginning production, the producers of the film had to send a short synopsis to the Civil Censorship Detachment which cut certain aspects of the film if it had anti-American sentiments, depicted remnants of World War II, the black market, etc., and encouraged the filmmakers to include such things as the different classes working together, anti-feudalistic ideals, kissing, etc. Kurosawa, often considered one of the most "Western" of filmmakers, was in fact quite against Western ideals, i.e. American, ideals forced on Japan and slowness in which the occupation forces restored Japan to a habitable level. The yakuza in the film are the ones who have truly embraced the West. Matsunaga wears an aloha shirt and sports Western-tailored suits, he drinks Western liquor, and dances to jazz music. The dangerous Okada also quickly embraces Western dress after he is released from prison. The filthy swamp could be seen not only as the result of the devastation caused by World War II, but also as a continuous stagnation of the country as long as the American forces were present.

While often not listed as one of his best films, Drunken Angel marks a deviation from earlier films such as No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) and One Wonderful Sunday (1946) which held closer to the standards and ideals established by SCAP. December 20, 2007

Drunken Angel

Drunken Angel is a significant film in the pantheon of Akira Kurosawa's masterpieces. For one its one of his first major succeses after eight films. Its Kurosawa's first time working with the actor he became most associated with, Toshiro Mifune. And years after the end of WWII its a great film made successfuly under strict allied censorship.

The film itself is a tale involving two men on, a doctor and a young yakuza living in a swampy slum outlying Tokyo. The doctor, the titular Drunken Angel is Sanada who makes a pitiful ammount treating poor residents while mixing tea with pure alcohol (easier to get than bootleg whiskey on the black market). Into his life comes young Matsunaga, the leader of a small group. Matsunaga comes saying that he was injured from a door which left a piece in his hand. Of course when Sanada pulls the piece out it looks suspiciously like a bullet. Then Matsunaga coughs and Sanada becomes concerned that he might have tuberculosis. Matsunaga laughs him off but Sanada won't stop tailing Matsunaga as he grows sicker even though most of their run ins end with him being thrown to the ground or fighting with the younger man. Things get complicated when the original head of the family gets released from prison, who just happens to hold Sanada's nurse under his thumb. Where it goes from there I won't say.

This is simply a great film. After I watched Stray Dog for the first time this was one film I had wanted to see for a long time and it thankfully didn't disappoint me. For one thing there is the humanity that Kurosawa embues in his characters that makes them human and interesting. The great Takashi Shimura who played the leader of the Seven Samurai is excellent as Sanada a little man who fights hard trying to protect peoples health living in the slum surrounded by stagnant swamps. Its an easy character to like especially involving the character of young girl also suffering from TB who's almost healed. Without a doubt though the reason to see this movie is Toshiro Mifune as Matsunaga. In his later work with Kurosawa he mostly played gruffer older men, sly and cunning characters that fit the action. Here Mifune was in his mid-twenties, a brash and impudent young man and it tempers his performance as the young hothead. He's rakish and dismissive but also charming in a way that makes him watchable. On the opposite side of the camera of course Kurosawa holds his own as a writer and a director with little touches here and there to bring his slums to life. Some memorable traits I enjoyed are the musical moments like a night club scene where you can see Matsunaga's relationship with his boss slowly disintegrating. And for the first half of the movie theres a bit with a guitarist outside of the doctors office playing a mournful tune. When the lead gangster shows up people know of his return as he takes the mans guitar and plays his own little song. Its a shame that Kurosawa only worked with Mifune for twenty years but every one of their films together is a terrific piece of entertainment. See this movie to see how it began.

The DVD itself from Criterion is of course worth every penny for any fan of Kurosawa. The image is somewhat scratched in places with visible lines running through the image but compared to other films of the age on DVD it is restored greatly from what it could have been from a lesser company. Theres an audio commentary from noted film historian Donald Richie and two documentaries. One is the usual Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to create ported from Japan which does hold a lot of information on the making of the film. The second titled Kurosawa and the Censor is a documentary produced for the dvd documenting the postwar censorhip filmmakers faced from several agencies set up by the government and military. Its a fascinating piece featuring documents from the period with hand written notes outlining problems. For fans of Japanese films this is an interesting historical feature. All in all the usual well rounded package from Criterion and well worth the price.
December 4, 2007

Kurosawa's alcoholic doctor and terminal gangster.

Akira Kurosawa's 1948 breakthrough film, Drunken Angel, may not measure up to his best films, Seven Samurai, Kagemusha, or Stray Dog, but it is a great film in several respects. It is the first film that really feels like a Kurosawa film experience. Set in postwar Japan near a swamp of polluted water, Drunken Angel tells the story of an alcoholic slum doctor, Dr. Sanada, played by Kurosawa favorite, Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai; Ikiru; Rashomon), who befriends a young, small-time thug, Matsunaga (Toshirô Mifune), after a gunfight with a rival gangsters. Drunken Angel was not only the first collaboration between Kurosawa and Mifune, but the first collaboration of many between Shimura and Mifune as actors (the best of which was in Stray Dog). After he is diagnosed with potentially terminal tuberculosis, Matsunaga ignores the doctor's advice to take care of himself, instead placing his physical health at odds with his gangster lifestyle. The performances Shimura and Mifune bring to this film as deeply-flawed heroes (hence the film's catchy title) are really what make Drunken Angel a consideration for one of Kurosawa's better films. The long-overdue DVD release by Criterion features a new, digital transfer, audio commentary featuring Japanese-film scholar, Donald Richie, a 30-minute documentary on the making of Drunken Angel, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, "Kurosawa and the Censors," a new, 25-minute video piece that looks at the challenges Kurosawa faced in making Drunken Angel, new English subtitle translation, and an essay by cultural historian Ian Buruma.

G. Merritt November 16, 2007

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