Akahige = Red beard (Cinemascope Print)

Under the guidance of an aging, autocratic doctor, an arrogant, socially ambitious new intern learns the rewards of treating the poor in a public health clinic in this social drama that followed ‘Sanjuro’, the final film in Kurosawa’s samurai trilogy. While vaguely cyclical the complex narrative lacks a clear over-riding structure. Rather, it is purposely amorphous, full of incident and detail, sentiment and poetic fantasy. The film took over two years to shoot with Kurosawa going to painstaking lengths to achieve a realistic reconstruction of 19th-century feudal Japan. Also available on 16mm.