3.5 - DRUNKEN ANGEL (1948) & Disease

The second director of Season 3 is Akira Kurosawa; the sequence of his films begins with his 1948 breakthrough, DRUNKEN ANGEL. Initial discussions centre on its viability as a cinematic — rather than theatrical experience — and then we delve into post-war Japan, Kurosawa’s relationship with gangster culture, and this film’s positioning as a metaphor for some of these ideas.

Next Week’s Film
RASHOMON (1950): rent it on Amazon for $3.99 (still probably just about affordable, post-Brexit) at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004D3ICOG

This Week’s Media
STRIKE (2017–): Robert Galbraith, Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger
NARCOS, SEASON 3 (2017): Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro

Recommendations
NOSFERATU (1922): F.W. Murnau, Max Schreck, Greta Schröder
CARANDIRU (2003): Héctor Babenco, Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos, Rodrigo Santoro
BRIGHTON ROCK (1947): John Boulting, Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley
TOMBSTONE (1993): George P. Cosmatos, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer

Footnotes
Firstly, for more on the specifics of the yakuza (general introduction), have a look at this. This thread also has some interesting discussions of the yakuza’s place in Kurosawa’s work. Actors like the ever-wonderful Buster Keaton (to whom Sam refers at one point) are celebrated in this interesting article. For more on the history of post-war Japan, this is good. Finally, this is the film that Rob mentions in passing along with NOSFERATU as a visual fore-runner of this movie