Kamatari Fujiwara - Assistant-to-the-Chief Wada Chishū Ryū - Public Prosecutor Nonaka Seiji Miyaguchi - Prosecutor Okakura Kōji Mitsui - Reporter Ken Mitsuda - Public Corporation President Arimura Nobuo Nakamura - Legal Adviser Susumu Fujita - Detective Kōji Nanbara - Prosecutor Horiuchi Production While a critical and commercial success, Toho Studios grew frustrated with Kurosawa going overbudget during filming of The Hidden Fortress, and in response, Kurosawa decided to form his film company Kurosawa Productions in 1959. As his first independent film, Kurosawa believed that it would be insulting to the audience to make a movie with the intention of only making money and decided that his next film would be about a subject of social significance. The idea for The Bad Sleep Well came from Kurosawa's nephew Yoshio Inoue, whose story called "Bad Men's Prosperity" was used as the basis for Kurosawa's draft. Kurosawa began writing the script with Eijirō Hisaita, whom he had collaborated with on No Regrets for Our Youth and The Idiot, both starring Setsuko Hara. Kurosawa's other writing collaborators Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima and Shinobu Hashimoto would later join Kurosawa and Hisaita in the writing process once they were free from other projects. The process of writing the script took 80 days, with the script being carefully written to not resemble actual real-life cases of corruption in Japan. Filming began in March 22, 1960, with the Navy Yard of Toyohashi, Mount Aso, Marunouchi Building and the Yokohama Prison serving as main locations for the film. To convincingly play the part of a disabled wife, Kyōko Kagawa used uneven shoes and a knee brace. During filming of a car scene, Kagawa suffered injuries in her face and considered quitting her acting career. At the hospital where she was being treated, Toshiro Mifune stopped the press from interviewing her by standing in front of the door to her room. Reception Contemporary reviews were positive, with a Bosley Crowther piece in The New York Times from January 1963 calling it ”an aggressive and chilling drama of modern-day Japan” which ”gives to an ordinary tale of greedy and murderous contention a certain basic philosophical tone”. It praises Kurosawa for staging ”what amounts to cliches in this type of strongarm fiction in a way that makes them seem fresh and as fully of sardonic humor as though we had never seen their likes before”. Dan Schneider considers it one of Kurosawa’s