Customer Reviews

Red Beard [VHS]

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While the film is long, as many other reviewers have pointed out, it is not too long. It holds up, better than many contemporary American films with the same running time. This film wonderfully displays the silent grace and dignity Mifune plays so well. To see just how good he actually is, watch this, then watch Seven Samurai. His range is incredible. Every one of his characters is so different, all the way down to their walk. But, back to Red Beard. Like all Kurosawa films, there are some very memorable shots stylistically, and the acting is top-notch. There are many stories within the main plot, and they are all tied together very well. It isn't like a vignette piece. Each of the characters is related in one way or another. This is definitely an emotional tale, and made me feel for the characters and cheer for the compassion one human being can show to another. There isn't much humor here, like some of his other films, but it really isn't called for. If you come across the DVD from Mei-ah, do not buy it. The subtitles are horribly translated.

You often hear "They don't make movies like this anymore," and in this case I believe it's true. With "Red Beard," Kurosawa has tackled a subject which in past eras was coated with schmaltz, and in the current state of cinema, is avoided altogether: the nature of individual goodness in the face of want, inequality and privilege. Modern-day film makers in the West seem fearful of any emotions other than romantic desire, violent retribution or a "hip" self-referencing irony/ennui. Here, Mifune portrays a man who distains admiration for his own sacrifices while adhering to his own high standards of individual behavior. He's not above wheedling and even a bit of suggestive blackmail to raise funds for his clinic. In typical Mifune fashion, he manages to make a nearly saintly doctor an anti-hero who rubs almost everyone the wrong way.

The film is shot in black-and-white, and features many haunting images. Of special note is the scene in which Mifune attempts to break through the protective shell of an abandoned young girl. A young doctor has been trying to give her a spoonful of medicine; he quits after she slaps his hand away three times. Mifune takes over, and the girl continues to slap the proffered medicine away-- once, twice, trice; Mifune expresses an array of emotions in the simple act of trying once again. Finally, on the seventh attempt, the girl accepts the medicine. The quiet authenticity of this moment is rare in film.

I dare you people out there. Kurosawa's most inspiring work is one breathtaking 3 hour ride into the hearts and minds of clinical doctors that has still not been matched by any ER episode. Every frame in this piece looks and feels beautiful, and thank you to Criterion for doing so. I haven't seen a Kurosawa film that has been remastered to this degree. It will be a hard one to follow-up on quality. I actually would recommmend this film to people who loved Amelie. Why? Both are incredibly inspiring movies, but Red Beard is on the other side of the spectrum. It deals with death, despair, incurable illness within the heart, but by the end of the film, you are more inspired by the will to live, to make something of yourself that you never felt before. That is what Kurosawa wanted to make, and he truly went for it on his last black and white film. The irony of what happens 5 years later. He was only human as we were. We love and miss you Kurosawa-Kantoku.

Best shot/sequence:

Here's where Kurosawa does his best. The scene where Chobo is dying and the maids are yelling down the well, the camera tilts down from the faces of the maids into the reflection of water at the bottom of the well, but gives the illusion that the camera has shifted to the bottom of the well looking up at the maids. With a single teardrop from Otoyo hitting the face of the water, then we realize that the camera is actually hidden above them. Genuine masterwork.

This 1965 film is the story of a young doctor under the tutelage a compassionate but strict country doctor. It was Kurosawa's last black & white film and also, sadly, the last film he did with Toshiro Mifune, who plays the title character, the man who runs a clinic for the poor. Yasumoto, the arrogant and self-absorbed young doctor, resents being sent to this backward place, but as the action unfolds he learns more about the people wo need help and more about what it means to be a doctor. Exactly halfway through the film Yatsumo dons the robes of a clinic doctor, having decided that Red Beard is a worthy mentor. We also learn the stories of several patients in depth, and these are heartbreaking.

Mifune is charismatic and subdued (though Kurosawa unleashes him in a fight scene at a brothel, which is a pleasure to behold), playing a quiet man with as much intensity as he plays his usual samurai roles..

As expected, the direction and cinematography are beautiful, and your enjoyment of this will be enhanced by Stephen Prince's insightful commentary. The film's trailer is also included. Dialogue is Japanese with English subtitles.

Highly recommended.

While a Kurosawa fan, I had largely only seen his samurai epics, with "Rashomon" being the notable exception. When I saw he made a film about medicine, it piqued my curiosity and I am much richer for it.

In the movie, an arrogant young physician, Dr. Yasumoto unwilling works in a charity clinic with Dr. Niide, a.k.a., "Red Beard", who is played by Toshiro Mifune in his last role in a Kurosawa film.

This film is also the last black and white movie Kurosawa shot, and is a beautiful coda to this phase of Kurosawa's work. The use of lighting in particular has great symbolic and aesthetic effect as we watch Dr. Yasumoto learn medicine and compassion under Red Beard's tutelage.

Kurosawa does not pull many punches with 19th Century medicine: we sit with the physicians as they listen to the final breaths of a dying patient and watch a woman thrash against restraints as Red Beard operates on her in an era without anesthetics. We hear stories of sexual abuse and see all the warts of human existence, but we do so with a tough compassion and charity that is profoundly stirring.

Kurosawa is not just a great director and artist, but a skilled psychologist and lover of mankind. This movie deserves to be ranked with other Kurosawa masterpieces like the Seven Samurai, Ran, and Rashomon.

For those of you who don't know, Red Beard is without a doubt the last film of Kurosawa that is absolutely exceptional. Moreover, this film marks the end of many things for the director. First of all, this is the last movie where he works with Mifune. He spent nearly two years making this! It's understandable that they probably had their differences, which must have put quite a strain in their relationship. Red Beard is also Kurosawa's last black and white film. To most film fans of this genre, this is believed to also be his last film that shows so much emotion and complexity towards humans. One of the things I enjoyed most about this film was the cinematography. There are so many awesome scenes that Kurosawa films through wide lenses and long takes (Which I love). The musical score varies in emotion. This also has one of my favorite endings from a Kurosawa movie. While Seven Samurai had to be one of his best, this one was made after more than twenty years of experience from the most famous director in Japan, if not the world. In other words, Red Beard is the highest point of cinematic perfection for Akira Kurosawa.

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Red Beard released in Japan with the title "Akahige" is Kurosawa's final black and white film. It is also the final collaboration with famed Japanese actor, Toshiro Mifune.

Mifune stars as late 19th century medical clinic director, Dr. Kyojio "Akahige" Niide. The film portrays post graduate training done by a medical school graduate, Noboru Yasumoto who is having an internship at the clinic. This clinic is in a very rural area and therefore looks like one of an even earlier time. He helps out in several ways and eventually rescues an abused woman from a local brothel.

The film has some fine scenes and excellent photography. There are some scenes which squeamish audiences will probably not like. The most likely scene to upset people is a non-graphic scene where a nude woman is having surgery while conscious but drugged, and from the dialogue, I assume it is an appendectomy. The film remains poplar and is a good portrayal of 19th century medecine in the East.

The are also 2 special features on the DVD. There is a theatrical trailer and audio commentary by Stephen Prince, a noted scholar on Kurosawa films.

This is a good film for doctors, historians, and of course, Kurosawa fans.

In my opinion, this is one of Akira Kurosawa's best films, which means it is automatically a classic of world cinema.

As way of introduction, I would personally say of myself that I am bit of a cynic- I certainly do not expect a movie to 'change my life'. Movies are meant as entertainment, and one shouldn't look for more than that in a flick.

In the case of this film, however, I have seen something on the screen which has changed my perspective on things. I was deeply touched by the message of compassion in this film; not compassion as merely ones duty, or the contemptuous compassion of pity, but compassion as way of life. Compassion as a way of confirming the value of life. This is a powerful message- and a message that lingers long after the film is finished.

It is inevitable that any story that attempts to convey a moral or an idea be a bit 'preachy' - the story will always find itself somewhat in service of the parable.

But, as noted above, this is a Kurosawa film. We are in the hands of a master storyteller here, and it shows in every frame, every scene and in every performance, especially that of Toshiro Mifune. Kurosawa once again uses Mifune as the glue to hold a film together, and he once again delivers. Every performance in here is a gem, many of them given by actors Kurosawa has favored in other films. But these are all but planets to Mifune's sun.

By any measure this is a great film. As with Seven Samurai, the length of the film is never felt to be excessive, as each moment of the movie is used to tell a compelling story. I feel fortunate that this film has finally been made available on DVD, where I will have the opportunity to enjoy it in years to come.

Highly recommended.

In addition to being about the relationship between the young and old doctors, "Red Beard" is Kurosawa's can-opener for the Japanese psyche, with which he gently urges very private people everywhere to recognize how many hold deep hidden suffering inside them, which makes them ill, and the value of sharing those secrets.

Again and again, the movie is about how hidden secrets make people sick, and how the old doctor can intuit the presence of these secrets and give patients some way to relieve them.

This may be considered the deep subtext of the film, beneath the coming-of-age drama that centers on the young doctor.

The film is beautiful, strikingly directed and acted, with moments that are amazing cadenzas of acting skill, where the director allows the actors to show how much they can make out of an emotion through their body-language.

It may also appear heavy-handed and obvious at times to Western viewers, who have had a hundred years of Freudian exploration of psychosomatic medicine. But if I understand the context, Kurosawa is asking many of his Japanese viewers to consider for the first time the enormous hidden harm caused by physical and sexual abuse, extreme poverty (and extreme wealth), some uses of traditional authority, patriarchial attitudes, the prideful identification with a dead aristocracy, government policies that punish the poor, broken and bruised hearts resulting from complicated and entangled relationships, resourcefully anti-social adaptations to oppression, and other dark shadows beneath the enameled glaze of contemporary Japanese complacency.

Forgive me if that sounds overstated. But watch for it just under the surface of the fllm, again and again, and increasingly as the film goes on. The film strikes me as a profound and profoundly sad social document, braced by a heroic sense that individuals can still make a difference.

It's not just, as you will read elsewhere, an uplifting story about two doctors. There is much more, and that more is a tragic vision of how people and society conspire in a dance of self-defeat, and where a caring person might try to change this.

Akira Kurosawa said about his film "Akahige", "I had something special in mind when I made this film because I wanted to make something that my audience would want to see it, something so magnificent that people would just have to see it." Humanistic and compassionate, the film tells the story of a young doctor who after graduation from the Dutch Medical School in Nagasaki hopes to become a member of the court medical staff but instead has to take a post as an intern at a Public Clinic for the impoverished patients. The clinic is run by Dr. Nide (Toshiro Mifune) whom the destitute patients call "Red Beard". The long and difficult journey awaits the young doctor - from the initial shock and denial to work at the clinic, to learning how to understand his patients, care for them s and see the humans in them. Kurosawa describes the film, one of his directorial pinnacles as a "monument to the goodness in man". It also can be called a monument to his talent and humanism.