Even with some very slow bits in this film, I still have to say it is my second favorite film by Kurosawa (after Seven Samurai, of course). Scenes and dialogue in this film just stick with you, like when a young pickpocket is sharing a popsicle in a police interrogation room with streetwise and experienced Inspector Sato (played by one of my favorite actors, Takhashi Shimura). They seem, strangely, to be enjoying themselves. But then Sato gives the girl a cigarette and she sucks on it as if her last breath was coming, smoking almost the whole cigarette in 30 seconds. The tension that pours out of the girl in that scene is incredible. Shimura and Mifune as the wise, old cop and the young, earnest rookie are absolutely convincing and completely mesmerizing. The streetwise petty criminals that they meet paint such a vivid picture of post war Tokyo that you feel the heat and choke in the dust with them.