Kurosawa has said that he is fond of the works of Georges Simenon, and in Stray Dog he had a chance to exercise his skills in the police thriller genre. A young detective (Toshiro Mifune) whose pistol is stolen searches all over Tokyo for the man who has taken it. He eventually finds his man, but not before the gun has been used for murder. "In the hot, muggy weather that enervates everybody in the city, only the policeman's purposeful conviction prevents him from melting into the mass of aimless dissipated people in the districts where he searches. Stray Dog is typical of the way Kurosawa adapts popular melodrama to his own ends without sacrificing a bit of its intrinsic entertainment value."