Stray Dog

Stray Dog is a 1949 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, set during a Tokyo heat wave in the postwar years. It follows homicide detective Murakami, whose pistol is stolen on a crowded trolley, as he and veteran detective Sato trace the weapon through the criminal underworld of the city to a disillusioned war veteran who has used it in a robbery and murder. Pairing two detectives of contrasting temperament while examining the difficult postwar recovery of Japan, it is considered an early precursor of the police-procedural and buddy-cop film genres.