Stray Dog (1949) - Japanese film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa

* *

This is one of the first Japanese films that I've seen that isn't an animation and I can't say that I was impressed. I think that its age also works against it because I find older films slower and have become accustomed to the fast paced style of most modern films. The film follows a police officer who gets his gun stolen and then goes on a desperate search throughout Tokyo to try to find it.

The film was two hours long and my seminar tutor said that the director purposely made every scene too long but it felt pointless. When I was watching the film I could pick out so many scenes that could be shortened or cut completely. I understand that sometimes people make certain decisions for artistic purposes but I think that it is a bad thing to make a film that the audience is waiting to end and mentally cutting moments out of it.

The merits of the film are that it is quite interesting and different compared to a lot of other films that I've seen but I do not know how different it is from a typical Japanese film of that era. Because of this I cannot say whether or not it was at least innovative. My lack of knowledge of the genre and countries cinema hinders my appreciation of the film.

I really couldn't recommend this film to anyone unless they were the type of person who likes to watch films for other reasons than plot, etc. it's an academics type of film which are the types I don't like but I am well aware that plenty of people do.