You can really tell that Kurosawa made Drunken Angel in the immediate post-war era, not just because locations look bombed out, but because it has that very specific examination of traditional Japanese values (in this case the Yakuza code) as artifacts of a culture that no longer seems relevant. The title character is an alcoholic doctor played by Takashi Shimura, a man who despite his brokenness is devoted to his oath and takes care of kids and gangsters alike, and is unwilling to give up specifically on Toshirō Mifune's TB-stricken Yakuza, this Noir's second focus, just as devoted to his code, and that's what's going to kill him. Mifune's Matsunaga is a symbol for that dead Japan, struggling to find relevance. Dr. Sanada is a broken Japan, forging ahead as best he can, living by a man-made swamp of filth. But one of his patients, a young girl, is the new Japan, bright and hopeful. Sanada's nurse is that part of Japan that pines for what has been lost and hasn't yet accepted what's to come. While Matsunaga's story is cruel Noir, Sanada's manages to be a little more positive, and is the more touching for it. And do I really need to say Kurosawa does great things with light, shadow and music?

I would add Takashi Shimura to this partnership. Nice movie.

not the best noir (spends too much time developing in the first half of the movie-we sort of get the doctor/patient relationship after the first seven times they fight!) or best Kurosawa for that matter but worth a look nonetheless if for nothing else it is probably one of the only few noirs one will see that does not have a gun in it- very refreshing....