In ravished, Post-War Tokyo, rookie Detective Murakami's (Young Toshiro Mifune) gun is stolen. Being the crippling times, guns are tough to come by. Soon, victims are found, slain with bullets from Mifune's gun. The man-hunt is on, while Tokyo goes through a devastating heatwave, and Mifune goes through an equally devastating change ("A Stray Dog sees only what it chases" a detective warns him.) Made well before Akira Kurosawa became famous for "Rashomon", "Stray Dog" is a roaring classic! Every character's movement reflects either the horrid heatwave, or the living conditions. It is ironic that a downpour (Kurosawa's favorite on-screen weather condition) breaks the heat just as the tensions in the film mount. How "Bicycle Thief" reflected the times of post war Italy, this classic does the same for post war Japan.
