FILM
REVIEW: DRUNKEN ANGEL ma n u e l j o se f lores ag u i lar The end of the Second World War and the subsequent American occupation represented a tragic upheaval for the Japanese nation. In those years, although the occupying forces appeared to promote freedom and democracy, the Americans had an additional focus. With the aim of avoiding the spread of anti-democratic and anti-American ideologies in Japan, they sought to take control of the media and impose strict censorship. These new restrictions would profoundly impact the Japanese film industry. Drunken Angel (Yoidore Tenshi, 1948) takes place in a peripheral neighbourhood in Tokyo during the post-war period, centring on the troubled friendship between its two main protagonists: the young yakuza, Matsunaga, played by Toshiro Mifune, who suffers from tuberculosis; and the alcoholic doctor, Sanada, played by Takashi Shimura, who hopes to save him from both the disease and his criminal lifestyle. This relationship is brought into conflict by the return of Matsunaga’s former boss, who intends to reclaim his position as leader of the gang.
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Main actors
Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Drunken Angel is not simply a story about Japanese gangsters, but a Genre Drama, Romance critique of Japan’s westernisation. Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel, proProduction Toho Studios duced during this time, is not only company a prime example of how censorship can influence the making of a film, Release date April 27 1948 but also of how Kurosawa used his work to criticise such censorship, along with the occupation itself and its related ideologies. We are confronted with the problems of black marketeering, the destruction of a nation, prostitution, precarious living conditions, and poverty.
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