Red Beard

Aroview: An unusual hospital drama from dir. Kurosawa, collaborating for the final time with Mifune, who here plays a tough doctor coaching an intern (Kayama) to the realities of medical practice in a charity hospital.

At times this approaches Dickensian soap opera in its teeming interplay of various characters and their motives, yet retains a sincere and humanistic core, with Kurosawa injecting his luminous visual qualities (and the odd fight scene).