Editing Akira Kurosawa (section)

==== First postwar works (1946–1950) ====
After the war, Kurosawa, influenced by the democratic ideals of the Occupation, sought to make films that would establish a new respect towards the individual and the self{{Citation needed|reason=Not mentioned in his Autobiography, "Something Like And Autobiography" contrarily he mentioned struggling with occupation as an influence for the post-war period. Needs supporting evidence|date=September 2022}}. The first such film, ''[[No Regrets for Our Youth]]'' (1946), inspired by both the 1933 [[Takigawa incident]] and the [[Hotsumi Ozaki]] wartime spy case, criticized Japan's prewar regime for its political oppression.{{refn|group=note|In 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with his mentor, Kajiro Yamamoto, and Hideo Sekigawa, the feature ''[[Those Who Make Tomorrow]]'' (''Asu o tsukuru hitobito''). Apparently, he was commanded to make this film against his will by [[Toho]] studios, to which he was under contract at the time. (He claimed that his part of the film was shot in only a week.) It was the only film he ever directed for which he did not receive sole credit as director and the only one that has never been released on home video in any form. The movie was later repudiated by Kurosawa and is often not counted with the 30 other films he made, though it is listed in some filmographies of the director.<ref>{{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=65–67}}</ref><ref name="Akira Kurosawa">{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/people/akira-kurosawa-9370236|title=Akira Kurosawa |publisher=A&E Television Networks |date=April 21, 2016 |access-date=June 8, 2017 }}</ref>}} Atypically for the director, the heroic central character is a woman, Yukie ([[Setsuko Hara]]), who, born into upper-middle-class privilege, comes to question her values in a time of political crisis. The original script had to be extensively rewritten and, because of its controversial theme and gender of its protagonist, the completed work divided critics. Nevertheless, it managed to win the approval of audiences, who turned variations on the film's title into a postwar [[catchphrase]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=70–79}}; {{Harvnb|Richie|1999|p=37}}; {{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|p=150}}; {{Harvnb|Yoshimoto|pp=114–134}}</ref>

His next film, ''[[One Wonderful Sunday]]'', premiered in July 1947 to mixed reviews. It is a relatively uncomplicated and sentimental love story dealing with an impoverished postwar couple trying to enjoy, within the devastation of postwar Tokyo, their one weekly day off. The movie bears the influence of [[Frank Capra]], [[D. W. Griffith]] and [[F. W. Murnau]], each of whom was among Kurosawa's favorite directors.<ref>{{Harvnb|Richie|1999|pp=43–46}}; {{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=87–91}}</ref><ref name="Kurosawa Top 100">{{cite web|url=http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/akira-kurosawas-list-of-his-100-favorite-movies.html|title=Akira Kurosawa's Top 100 Films |publisher=Open Culture |last=Crow|first=Jonathan|date=January 9, 2015 |access-date=August 8, 2017 }}</ref> Another film released in 1947 with Kurosawa's involvement was the action-adventure thriller, ''[[Snow Trail]]'', directed by [[Senkichi Taniguchi]] from Kurosawa's screenplay. It marked the debut of the intense young actor [[Toshiro Mifune]]. It was Kurosawa who, with his mentor Yamamoto, had intervened to persuade Toho to sign Mifune, during an audition in which the young man greatly impressed Kurosawa, but managed to alienate most of the other judges.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|pp=159–161}}</ref>

[[File:Shimura Takashi.JPG|thumb|left|upright|[[Takashi Shimura]] played a dedicated doctor helping an ailing gangster in ''[[Drunken Angel]]''. Shimura performed in over 20 of Kurosawa's films.|alt=Publicity still of Shimura cleanly shaven and wearing glasses.]]
''[[Drunken Angel]]'' is often considered the director's first major work.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Morris|first1=Gary|title=Three Early Kurosawas: Drunken Angel, Scandal, I Live in Fear|url=http://brightlightsfilm.com/three-early-kurosawas-drunken-angel-scandal-live-fear/|website=Bright Lights Film Journal|date=October 1, 2000|access-date=June 8, 2017}}</ref> Although the script, like all of Kurosawa's occupation-era works, had to go through rewrites due to American censorship, Kurosawa felt that this was the first film in which he was able to express himself freely. A gritty story of a doctor who tries to save a gangster ([[yakuza]]) with [[tuberculosis]], it was also the first time that Kurosawa directed Mifune, who went on to play major roles in all but one of the director's next 16 films (the exception being {{lang|ja-latn|Ikiru}}). While Mifune was not cast as the protagonist in ''Drunken Angel'', his explosive performance as the gangster so dominates the drama that he shifted the focus from the title character, the alcoholic doctor played by [[Takashi Shimura]], who had already appeared in several Kurosawa movies. However, Kurosawa did not want to smother the young actor's immense vitality, and Mifune's rebellious character electrified audiences in much the way that [[Marlon Brando]]'s defiant stance would startle American film audiences a few years later.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Warren|first1=Richard|title=Brando and Eliot in shadows|url=https://richardawarren.wordpress.com/tag/toshiro-mifune/|publisher=Richard Warren Review|date=February 2, 2015|access-date=August 8, 2017}}</ref> The film premiered in Tokyo in April 1948 to rave reviews and was chosen by the prestigious ''[[Kinema Junpo]]'' critics poll as the best film of its year, the first of three Kurosawa movies to be so honored.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|pp=161–164}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Bock|1978|p=169}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=94–97}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Richie|1999|pp=47–53}}</ref>

After the completion of ''Drunken Angel'', Toho became embroiled in a months-long [[Toho strikes#Third Toho strike|labor strike]], in which the Toho [[labor union|union]] occupied the grounds of the studio. When Toho management ceased paying workers' salaries, Kurosawa formed a touring [[acting troupe]] to raise funds, directing [[Anton Chekhov]]'s ''[[A Marriage Proposal|The Proposal]]'', and an adaptation of ''Drunken Angel'' starring Mifune and Shimura.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hirano |first1=Kyoko |title=Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation, 1945–1952 |date=1992 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6OsKAQAAMAAJ |location=Washington and London |isbn=1560981571 |pages=225–226}}</ref> Disillusioned by the division and violence between employees at Toho, the underhanded tactics of Toho leadership, and the breaking of the occupation by [[Siege#Police sieges|police and military standoff]], Kurosawa left Toho, later recalling "I had come to understand that the studio I had thought was my home actually belonged to strangers".<ref>{{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|pp=166–168}}</ref>

Kurosawa, with producer Sōjirō Motoki and fellow directors and friends Kajiro Yamamoto, [[Mikio Naruse]] and Senkichi Taniguchi, formed a new independent production unit called Film Art Association (Eiga Geijutsu Kyōkai). For this organization's debut work, and first film for [[Kadokawa Pictures|Daiei studios]], Kurosawa turned to a contemporary play by Kazuo Kikuta and, together with Taniguchi, adapted it for the screen. ''[[The Quiet Duel]]'' starred Toshiro Mifune as an idealistic young doctor struggling with [[syphilis]], a deliberate attempt by Kurosawa to break the actor away from being [[Typecasting (acting)|typecast]] as gangsters. Released in March 1949, it was a box office success, but is generally considered one of the director's lesser achievements.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|pp=168–169}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Richie|1999|pp=54–57}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=100–104}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Yoshimoto|pp=140–146}}</ref>

[[File:Toshiro Mifune 1954 Scan10003 160913.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Toshiro Mifune]], a frequent lead in Kurosawa's films, in 1954]]
His second film of 1949, also produced by Film Art Association and released by [[Shintoho]], was ''[[Stray Dog (film)|Stray Dog]]''. It is a [[Mystery film|detective movie]] (perhaps the first important Japanese film in that genre)<ref>{{cite book|last1=Broe|first1=Dennis|title=Class, Crime and International Film Noir: Globalizing America's Dark Art|date=2014|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=London|isbn=978-1-137-29013-7|pages=162–167|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BbyuAwAAQBAJ|access-date=June 9, 2017}}</ref> that explores the mood of Japan during its painful postwar recovery through the story of a young detective, played by Mifune, and his fixation on the recovery of his handgun, which was stolen by a penniless war veteran who proceeds to use it to rob and murder. Adapted from an unpublished novel by Kurosawa in the style of a favorite writer of his, [[Georges Simenon]], it was the director's first collaboration with screenwriter [[Ryuzo Kikushima]], who would later help to script eight other Kurosawa films. A famous, virtually wordless sequence, lasting over eight minutes, shows the detective, disguised as an impoverished veteran, wandering the streets in search of the gun thief; it employed actual documentary footage of war-ravaged Tokyo neighborhoods shot by Kurosawa's friend, [[Ishirō Honda]], the future director of ''[[Godzilla (1954 film)|Godzilla]]''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|pp=172–177}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=108–115}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Richie|1999|pp=58–64}}</ref> The film is considered a precursor to the contemporary [[police procedural]] and [[buddy cop film]] genres.<ref>{{cite journal|title=FilmInt|journal=Film International|year=2006|volume=4|issue=1–6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y50qAQAAIAAJ|access-date=June 9, 2017|page=163|quote=In addition to being a masterful precursor to the buddy cop movies and police procedurals popular today, Stray Dog is also a complex genre film that examines the plight of soldiers returning home to post-war Japan.|publisher=Kulturrådet|location=Sweden}}</ref>

''[[Scandal (1950 film)|Scandal]]'', released by [[Shochiku]] in April 1950, was inspired by the director's personal experiences with (and anger towards) Japanese [[yellow journalism]]. The work is an ambitious mixture of courtroom drama and social problem film about free speech and personal responsibility, but even Kurosawa regarded the finished product as dramatically unfocused and unsatisfactory, and almost all critics agree.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kurosawa|1983|pp=177–180}};
 {{Harvnb|Richie|1999|pp=65–69}}; {{Harvnb|Galbraith|pp=118–126}}; {{Harvnb|Yoshimoto|pp=180–181}}</ref> However, it would be Kurosawa's second film of 1950 that would ultimately win him (and Japanese cinema) a whole new international audience.