Every year on the anniversary of Toshiro Mifune’s birth, I tell everyone I can to watch Nora Inu (released in the US as Stray Dog). It’s one of my all-time favorite movies, one of the best noir movies to come out of Japan, and an incredibly strong example of Akira Kurosawa’s films. It’s also, strangely, the Kurosawa/Mifune joint people talk about the least. First, let’s all remember the hotness that was Toshiro Mifune: If you were expecting to see him in film-faux samurai garb, sorry to disappoint you. Mifune appeared in nearly 170 films as an actor, including 16 of Kurosawa’s, and most…