Although Toshiro Mifune usually gets the lion's share of attention, I am a very big fan of Takashi Shimura, who plays the older, wiser detective to Mifune's young, mercurial rookie detective in Stray Dog. Their other teaming up around the same period was in Kurosawa's Drunken Angel, where they each play very different parts but still have a sympathetic relationship. Shimura's most famous roles were as the dying bureaucrat in Ikiru and the Samurai leader in Seven Samurai. I really liked him in Stray Dog because, in the way he smoothly extracts information from shady characters and efficiently makes use of his time and effort, he is the perfect contrast to Mifune, who lashes out in all directions to recover his stolen gun. A real bonus in this movie is seeing actual locations in Japanese cities during the American occupation following WW II, while Japan was still recovering economically. The summer heat is a physical presence in this film, oppressing all the characters day after day, much in the same way as in High and Low, another terrific Kurosawa police thriller. Highly recommended.
