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Drunken Angel (1948)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa · Shot by Takeo Itō · Cut by Akikazu Kōno · Music by Fumio Hayasaka · 98 min
How it was made
- The waning influence of Toho's trade union in late 1947 let Kurosawa make the film with minimal studio or union interference, unlike his two prior productions.
- Kurosawa took the image of a sunken concrete ship's prow being used as a diving board by children at the seaside resort Atami as a metaphor for Japan's postwar defeat, and turned it into the film's central cesspool set piece.
- Co-writer Keinosuke Uekusa met with a member of the yakuza to research the character of Matsunaga, and the doctor character was reworked after the writers recalled an unlicensed alcoholic doctor they had encountered in Tokyo's black market district.
- The production reused a pre-existing black-market shopping street set originally built for the film These Foolish Times, and it marked Kurosawa's first collaboration with production designer Yoshiro Muraki.
- Toho pressured Kurosawa to finish quickly out of fear of another strike, and actress Keiko Orihara fell ill during the shoot and had to be replaced by Chieko Nakakita partway through.
- A 150-minute cut of the film was completed but never released; only the 98-minute cut survives in the negatives and prints.
Elsewhere
More by Akira Kurosawa
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