In 1943, Shimura appeared as the old jujutsu Teacher Murai Hansuke in Kurosawa's debut movie, Sanshiro Sugata. Along with Toshirō Mifune, Shimura is the actor most closely associated with Kurosawa: he eventually appeared in 21 of Kurosawa's 30 films. In fact, Kurosawa's cinematic collaboration with Shimura, from Sanshiro Sugata in 1943 to Kagemusha in 1980, started earlier and lasted longer than his work with Mifune (1948–65). Shimura's performances for Kurosawa included the Doctor in Drunken Angel (1948), the veteran detective in Stray Dog (1949), the flawed Lawyer in Scandal (1950), the woodcutter in Rashomon (1950), the mortally ill bureaucrat in Ikiru (1952), and the lead samurai Kambei in Seven Samurai (1954). Kurosawa wrote the part in Kagemusha specifically for Shimura, but the scenes were cut from the Western release, so many in the West did not know that he had been in the film. The DVD release of the film by The Criterion Collection restored Shimura's footage.