Drunken Angel from Criterion in November
9 September 2007

Criterion's commitment to the works of Akira Kurosawa continues with the announcement of a November release for the director's eighth feature and his first real critical success, the 1948 Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi), which stars two of the director's favourite actors, Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune. Shimura plays Dr. Sanada, a jaded practitioner in a slum-based clinic in Tokyo who is visited by small time gangster Matsunaga, who has been left injured after a battle with criminal rivals. Sanada discovers that Matsunaga has tuberculosis and convinces him to begin treatment immediately, and an unlikely and unhealthy friendship develops between the two men. Set in and around the muddy swamps and back alleys of postwar Tokyo, Drunken Angel is an evocative, moody snapshot of a volatile time and place, featuring one of the director's most memorably violent climaxes.

Already available in the UK from the BFI, Drunken Angel has been announced for a US release in November as part of the Criterion Collection with the following features:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer;

Audio commentary featuring Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie;

A 30-minute documentary on the making of Drunken Angel, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create;

Kurosawa and the Censors, a new video piece that looks at the challenges Kurosawa faced in making Drunken Angel;

New and improved English subtitle translation;

An essay by cultural historian Ian Buruma and a reprint from Kurosawa’s Something Like An Autobiography.

Drunken Angel will be released by Criterion on 27th November 2007 at the SRP of $39.95.