Before Lethal Weapon, 48 Hrs., Freebie and the Bean, and even In the Heat of the Night came along, Akira Kurosawa laid the groundwork for the now-familiar “buddy cop” genre with his 1949 classic Stray Dog. The argument could be made that no one has influenced modern Hollywood filmmaking more than Kurosawa. With The Hidden Fortress, he laid out the template for Star Wars. With Seven Samurai, he laid out the template for team-up action movies like The Magnificent Seven and The Expendables. With Yojimbo, he laid out the template for lone-wolf antiheroes like John Wick, Snake Plissken, and the Man with No Name. And with Stray Dog, he laid out the template for the “buddy cop” subgenre.

One of the first Japanese detective films, Stray Dog is also considered to be a crucial precursor to the police procedural. The film’s gritty tone and cynical outlook on the difference between good and evil evoked the somber contemporary mood of post-war Japan. As the first movie to pair up two detectives with very different goals and personalities for the purpose of solving a tough-to-crack case, Stray Dog originated many of the tropes now associated with the “buddy cop” genre.

RELATED: Star Wars Is A Loose Remake Of This Japanese Classic

Shane Black’s “buddy cop” classics tend to take place during the festive season of Christmas, but Stray Dog is set in the midst of a blistering heatwave. Much like in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, the heat makes everyone a lot more hostile. A young, inexperienced cop has his gun stolen from its holster while he’s riding the bus to work. When the stolen gun’s journey through the illicit arms market ends up drawing him into a larger criminal conspiracy, he teams up with an older, wiser, more experienced detective to get it back.

Murakami and Sato looking off-screen in Stray Dog

This was one of Kurosawa’s earliest collaborations with Toshiro Mifune, who would go on to star in such classics as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Throne of Blood. Mifune plays the young, naive Detective Murakami alongside Takashi Shimura, another Kurosawa staple, as the older veteran Detective Satō. Mifune and Shimura share an easy chemistry in these roles that carries the movie. Initially, Satō has no tolerance for Murakami’s fresh-faced inexperience and lack of guile, while newcomer Murakami doesn’t gel with Satō’s old-fashioned policing style. But, as would become the tradition of the genre, over the course of the movie, a mutual respect grows between these two officers of the law.

Murakami and Satō both come to the realization that they have a lot to learn from each other. Satō, of course, has plenty of lessons about law enforcement to teach Murakami, but Murakami also teaches Satō to empathize with the criminals they pursue. During one particularly tender scene in which Satō introduces Murakami to his wife and children (reminiscent of the relationship that blooms between Riggs and the Murtaugh family in the Lethal Weapon franchise), the two detectives share some rationed beer and talk about the villainous Yusa. Satō maintains a clear distinction between good and bad, that “the bad guys are bad,” and that maggots prefer to wallow in filth. But Murakami counters that he pities Yusa, because bad people are created by bad situations.

Later “buddy cop” films produced by Hollywood studios would revolve around brash American cops who shoot first and ask questions later. The storytelling in Stray Dog isn’t driven by explosions and shootouts; it’s driven by interviews with witnesses and going undercover in the black market. Modern audiences who are used to the explosive exploits of Lethal Weapon and the Eddie Murphy-starring Beverly Hills Cop might be bored by the patiently paced procedural plotting of Stray Dog, but movies like Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop wouldn’t exist if Kurosawa hadn’t laid the groundwork with his 1949 noir masterpiece.

Murakami and Sato investigating a case in Stray Dog

Asakazu Nakai’s crisp, minimalist cinematography tells the story as visually and succinctly as possible. A montage of persons of interest hanging around seedy locations that the detective is checking out is laid over an iconic image of the detective’s suspicious eyes darting back and forth. Leading up to the climactic showdown, as Murakami slowly identifies the man with his gun, Kurosawa expertly cuts together a series of tightening close-ups before a chase ensues. Fumio Hayasaka’s musical score by turns offers a strangely whimsical juxtaposition to the on-screen violence and builds suspense during the investigation scenes.

Stray Dog adheres to the tradition that all successful “buddy cop” movies must follow: the less complicated the plot is, the better. The plot is really only there to get two contrasting characters to work together, so it needs to be simplistic, and plots don’t get more simplistic than the search for a stolen gun. The audience understands Detective Murakami’s goal – to get his gun back – from the offset. From there, Murakami’s relationship with Detective Satō is free to take the spotlight. Fans of the Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour, and Men in Black franchises have Stray Dog to thank for pioneering all the tropes.

MORE: Before Lethal Weapon, There Was 48 Hrs.