Which Kurosawa film marked his first collaboration with Toshiro Mifune?

Which Kurosawa film marked his first collaboration with Toshiro Mifune? The answer is Drunken Angel.

Released in Japan in 1948, Drunken Angel pairs Mifune with Takashi Shimura in a postwar story about an alcoholic doctor, Sanada, and his yakuza patient, Matsunaga, played by Mifune. The doctor tries to confront Matsunaga’s tuberculosis and destructive criminal life, while the film examines illness, corruption, and social dislocation in occupied Japan.

Mifune had made a powerful impression during a Toho audition, and Kurosawa helped secure his place at the studio. Drunken Angel became the first of sixteen films they made together, a partnership that became one of the defining actor-director collaborations in cinema. Their later work included Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo. A frequent mix-up is Rashomon: it brought Kurosawa and Mifune major international attention after winning the Golden Lion at Venice in 1951, but it was not their first collaboration. Drunken Angel also marked Kurosawa’s first collaboration with composer Fumio Hayasaka.