The moody 28-year-old Mifune is the violent gangster whom boozy doctor Shimura diagnoses as suffering from TB ('a hole in the heart,' says the sour 'angel', ruefully). The movie breathes the polluted air of post-war pessimism, dissipation and poetic fatalism, symbolised in the shots of the oily, malaria-ridden swamp of a Tokyo dockside, but it is dramatically qualified by Mifune's suggested redeemability and Shimura's stoical humanism. Fascinating, highly enjoyable and filled with great scenes - find out more...

Stunningly filmed in black and white, this classic slice of surrealist cinema is both touching and terrifying. A doctor, tortured beyond sanity after disfiguring his only daughter, sets out to give her back what he has taken away, at the expense of a succession of suitable young donors. A darkly disturbing marvellous movie. find out more...