Drunken Angel

Drunken Angel (酔いどれ天使, Yoidore tenshi) is a 1948 Japanese yakuza film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is notable for being the first of sixteen film collaborations between director Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune.

Plot

It stars Takashi Shimura as an alcoholic doctor in postwar Japan who treats a young, small-time hood named Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune), after a gunfight with a rival syndicate. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster with tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment (and quit boozing and womanizing). The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster's former boss, Okada, who is also the former abusive boyfriend of the doctor's female assistant, is released from prison and seeks to take his gang over once again. The sick young man then stops following the doctor's advice, slips back into old habits and going to night clubs with Okada. But Matsunaga realizes that Okada is not a true friend when Okada threatens to kill the doctor if he doesn't reveal the female assistant's whereabouts, and then finds out that the big Yakuza crime boss is grooming Okada and merely using Matsunaga as a pawn to be given up to the rival gang. When the doctor leaves his house to go report on Okada to the police, despite the doctor's orders to remain in bed, Matsunaga slips out to confront Okada (who has also managed to steal Matsunaga's girlfriend Nanae) but Matsunaga is killed in the ensuing knife fight. The film ends with a local shop-owner woman who had feelings for Matsunaga planning to take Matsunaga's ashes to be buried on her farm, far from the corrupt and dirty city, and the doctor happily learning that one of his younger patients has followed his advice and has been fully cured of tuberculosis.