Drunken Angel

Set in postwar Tokyo, Drunken Angel centres on Sanada, a doctor whose heavy drinking has earned him the nickname of the title. Working from a shabby clinic in a poor neighbourhood, he treats a young yakuza named Matsunaga for a wound and discovers the man also has tuberculosis. The gangster is too proud to accept help, and the two clash repeatedly, yet the doctor keeps pressing him to seek treatment. Their uneasy bond is strained further when Matsunaga's former boss, Okada, returns from prison and pulls him back towards the criminal life he cannot leave behind.

The film was directed by Akira Kurosawa, the second of the twenty-three features he made, following Sanshiro Sugata and preceding Stray Dog. He wrote the screenplay with Keinosuke Uekusa, and Sojiro Motoki produced it for TOHO. Takashi Shimura plays Sanada and Toshiro Mifune plays Matsunaga, with Reizaburo Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure, Chieko Nakakita and Noriko Sengoku among the credited cast of twenty-two.

Released in Japan in April 1948 and running 98 minutes, the drama holds a rating of 7.6 out of 10 on TMDB from around 320 votes, while its critics' rating stands at 7.7 out of 10 from sixteen reviews, placing the two measures close together.