Akahige [Red Beard] (1965)

(On Cable TV, April 2020) I find writer-director Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard interesting because it blends a streak of concerns and themes found in other films and other styles. It is a period drama but it is not centred on samurais. It is about public service, but not quite as bluntly as Ikiru. It’s almost refreshing in the way it goes for an epic recreation of a historical period… only to keep its gaze firmly focused on the quotidian struggles of semi-ordinary people. It is, on the other hand, very, very long—taking two years to shoot, requiring almost an entire town to be built, spanning a multiplicity of overlapping subplots, mini-movies, double flashbacks and plot turns. Toshirō Mifune is magnificent, possibly regal in the title role—a grizzled veteran doctor explaining how the world works (and more importantly how it should work) to a younger protégé. Red Beard did test my patience after a while, even though I do like a lot of its humanistic approach: in its current state in-between a movie and a TV show, I probably would have liked it better had it been shorter.