Drunken Angel (1948) on Netflix
In a shanty town beside an open sump, the alcoholic doctor Sanada treats Matsunaga, a wounded yakuza, and tells him he has tuberculosis. Matsunaga runs the black market and brushes him off.
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Plot summary
Matsunaga, a small-time yakuza, comes to a clinic after a gunfight with a rival syndicate. The doctor there, Sanada, drinks heavily and works in a slum beside an open sump. He finds that his patient has tuberculosis. Matsunaga reacts with violence, and the arrival of Sanada's nurse Miyo stops him. The next day Sanada goes to the black market that Matsunaga controls and urges him to give up drink and cigarettes; Matsunaga throws him out of the bar. Sanada continues to see his other patients, including a high school student whose tuberculosis is improving. He and Miyo talk about Okada, a yakuza sworn brother of Matsunaga about to leave prison, and Miyo's former abusive boyfriend. After Sanada keeps at him, Matsunaga agrees to stop drinking.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Drunken Angel (1948)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The occupation's censors required Kurosawa to rewrite parts of Drunken Angel, cutting a mention of suicide and objecting to its prostitution and black markets; the original ending had Doctor Sanada driving Matsunaga's corpse around a Tokyo slum.- Toshiro Mifune was cast after Kurosawa saw him in Snow Trail and These Foolish Times; Kurosawa had seen Mifune's 1946 Toho audition and intervened in his hiring after the panel misread his wild behaviour as disrespect.
- Uekusa's meetings with a yakuza character model made him sympathise with their way of life so much that he and Kurosawa eventually argued.
- A 150-minute cut of Drunken Angel was made but never released; the film's surviving negatives and prints are the 98-minute version.
- For Okada's introductory scene, Kurosawa and Hayasaka wanted to use "Mack the Knife" from The Threepenny Opera, but it was copyrighted and the studio was unwilling to pay for the rights.
- Kurosawa based Drunken Angel's open sump on the prow of a sunken concrete ship he saw at the seaside resort Atami, where local children used it as a diving board; he saw it as a metaphor for Japan's defeat in the Second World War.
- Drunken Angel was the first film to depict the post-Second World War yakuza and is generally considered Kurosawa's first major work.
- Drunken Angel was built around a pre-existing set from These Foolish Times, a shopping street with a black market; Kurosawa credits that set for his interest in dissecting yakuza characters.
