Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Aero Theatre, Santa Monica
### **ABOUT THE FILMS:** **HIGH AND LOW, 1963, Dir. Akira Kurosawa, 143 Mins, Janus Films, Japan** *In Japanese with English subtitles.* Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in HIGH AND LOW (TENGOKU TO JIGOKU), the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa. Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel *King’s Ransom*, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society. FORMAT: DCP **STRAY DOG, 1949, Dir. Akira Kurosawa, 122 Mins, Janus Films, Japan** *In Japanese with English subtitles.* A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. With each step, cop and criminal’s lives become more intertwined and the investigation becomes an examination of Murakami’s own dark side. Starring Toshiro Mifune, as the rookie cop, and Takashi Shimura, as the seasoned detective who keeps him on the right side of the law, STRAY DOG (NORA INU) goes beyond a crime thriller, probing the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind. FORMAT: DCP