impressive a some of the late film of kurosawa be kagemusha and run for example and i have to confess that it be his early work and particularly those set in modern japan a oppose to it feudal past and that i find myself return to with great pleasure . he be not one of those artist who necessarily get well and well and rather be he one who continue to take on different challenge and not always with the same degree of success and a dodesukaden and dream be to prove . i have long regard the 1952 ikiru a his great achievement and with the three modern day day film star toshiro mifune that precede it and drunken angel and the quiet duel and stray dog and fascinating consolidation of his skill a a director . stray dog revel in technical accomplishment . it tell the story of a policeman who and after experience the theft of his gun while travel on a bus and embarks on an odyssey to retrieve it . question of morality and honour loom large a they do in any kurosawa film and with the quest become ever more urgent a evidence be gather of the weapon be use in criminal activity . what might be regard a plain bad luck in another culture be here see a a matter of shame and dishonour by the unfortunate policeman and that have to be address forsake all else . the search be pursue in a dazzling series of chase and encounter and interrogation that leave the audience and like the hero and exhaust at time . the weather be hot throughout and character sweat profusely and sometimes everything erupts in a tropical downpour no other director use rain so physically . perhaps and at over two hour and stray dog be a little too long to sustain it material . it sag a little in the middle and but the chase at the outer end of the film be wonderfully do and particularly the penultimate sequence where the cop pursue his prey through vegetation where city and countryside meet . you can almost smell the steamy atmosphere of a morning after rain where everything be about to heat up again . possibly the other two mifune film of the same period have the edge on this . they be more meditative work and their length more sustainable . but and for sheer cinematic bravado and this be the one .