Product Details

• Actors: Takashi Shimura, ToshirÃ' Mifune, Reisaburo Yamamoto, Michiyo Kogure, Chieko Nakakita
• Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Japanese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Criterion Collection
• DVD Release Date: November 27, 2007
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000VARC3C
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,360 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Drunken Angel (The Criterion Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 11/27/2007

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Absolute Beauty, September 20, 2007

By 

James Steve Robles (Mora, New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Drunken Angel (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

I am biased, I'll tell you that up front. Kurosawa is my favorite director. Even if he were not, I would still love this film.
Takashi Shimura (the head samurai in "Seven Samurai") plays an alcoholic doctor in a dumpy urban part of post-war Tokyo. Toshiro Mifune plays a small-time gangster who initially visits the doctor regarding a bullet wound. The doctor discovers that the gangster also has tuberculosis, and stubbornly tries to treat it. I say stubbornly because the gangster tries to act macho about the disease. The two charactors are both so strongly portrayed that the doctor's attempt to treat the disease and the gangster's faked but desperate non-chalance makes their relationship a struggle; at times they actually come to blows over the doctor's persistence. The doctor, I think, sees something of himself in the gangster; someone on the edge of society, someone with flaws, someone with unfulfilled dreams. The doctor wants the gangster to survive, and the gangster desperately wants to survive, but his "toughness" keeps him from admitting that he wants to live.
In any event, my wife and I fall in love with the doctor everytime that we see this film. He is the better angel of our nature, scolding and caring. Watch the film; you too will fall in love with it.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant character study, November 1, 2001

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Drunken Angel [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The key to "Drunken Angel" is the two main characters, both flawed and somewhat nobel. Mifune is Matsunaga, a powerful gangster coming to grips with his own weakness. He has tuberculosis. Shimura plays Dr. Sanada, a good hearted doctor who's weakness for alcohol has left him in the lower depths of society. When Mifune arrives to be treated for a gunshot wound, Shimura sees something in him, and attempts to treat him for his TB.

This uneasy friendship, and the balance of the two characters as they get to know each other, is the strength of "Drunken Angel." Both performances are gripping. The plot involving a gang boss released from jail, allows the two characters to develop with each other. The direction is tight and controlled.

This is easily a masterpiece, from one of cinema's greatest directors.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Masterpiece, June 20, 2000

By 

"kurosawa" (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drunken Angel [VHS] (VHS Tape)

When I first saw this film, it took my breath away. Mifune's performance is absolutely overpowering, and the whole structure and pace of the film is just right. It is one of my favorite of Kurosawa's films, and the fact that it is now finally being released to the public thrills me. It has not been very available and is probably the most underappreciated of Kurosawa's masterpieces.

Drunken Angel is a contemporary tale of the squalor of postwar Japanese society, and of an angel shining his light through the darkness to help those few he can. This film introduces for the first time many themes, symbols, and ideas that recieve their consummate expression in Kurosawa's later films, such as Ikiru, and even beyond, and around which Kurosawa's entire body of work revolves.

We see in the gangster the first lead performance of Toshiro Mifune, one of the greatest actors ever to honor the cinema with his presence, and in the doctor the first truly great performance by Takashi Shimura, the most reliable and talented actor in the Kurosawa group. This role also helps to contribute in subtle ways to his greatest performance, that of Watanabe in Ikiru.

And of Kurosawa himself, what can I say, he has once again left me at a loss for words. The end fight sequence with the mirror and the paint is pure cinematic genius.

So this film is a definite must see, not only for fans of Kurosawa, but for the entire world. It has my highest recommendation.