Toshiro Mifune in a crisp white suit and cap presents one of the underrated iconic looks in cinema. His rookie detective loses his pistol to a pickpocket in a heat wave and leads the audience on a tour of postwar Japan’s sweaty mean streets as he tries to get it back before it’s used in more crimes. This is where Akira Kurosawa’s 16-film collaboration with Mifune caught fire, and it still thrills. -Lee Gardner
1949 Akira Kurosawa 1.37:1 B&W DCP 122 min. In Japanese with subtitles.
