Shohei Imamura-Kanzo sensei ('Dr. Akagi') (1998)

Summer 1945 in a Japanese seaside village near Hiroshima. The local physician, Dr. Akagi, trying to stem a life threatening epidemic, enlists a motley but lively crew of outcasts from Japan's militaristic society to help him. Imamura's lifelong commitment to the idealism and absurdity of daily life attains profound new levels of insight in this Cannes Film Festival selection. KINO




Dr. Akagi, a rural physician in Japan during WWII, wages a one-man crusade against hepetitis, earning him a reputation as "Dr. Liver." But his fanatic campaign brings him into disfavor with the Japanese army, and as the war seems more and more hopeless for the Japanese, Dr. Akagi finds himself increasingly a scapegoat. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0155796/plotsummary)




In Japan, before the 1945 surrender, a provincial doctor races around town (literally-Dr. Akagi runs everywhere) in a non-stop campaign against a hepatitis epidemic. The seeming irrelevance of his quest is exactly the point: the movie suggests that in a time of extreme violence and disintegration, remaining devoted to one's calling is the only salvation. The veteran Japanese director Shohei Imamura works with great good humor and displays a surprising streak of erotic curiosity: as Dr. Akagi (Akira Emoto) gathers an irregular band of helpers-a prostitute, a morphine-addicted doctor, an escaped Dutch prisoner of war-the movie turns into a bedraggled celebration of sanity, sexuality, and true good-heartedness. (-David Denby - Editorial Reviews - The New Yorker)




This movie is a strange – and very good – drama that combines situation comedy, black humor, serious issues and, in a way, a kind of hopefulness. It takes place in a Japanese village on a small island during the period between Germany's surrender and the atom bombs fell. Militarism is always present with army officers and soldiers stationed in the village and with a near-by camp that holds prisoners-of-war. (amazon.com)




Akagi (Akira Emoto) is a middle-aged, widowed family doctor, the only one left in town, who is always on the go getting to his patients. He is obsessed by the prevalence of liver disorders and is convinced that this is caused by hepatitis. He's called "Dr. Liver" by the townspeople because he so often diagnoses them, in addition to what else they be sick with, as having hepatitis. Among the few people who help him are a morphine-addicted surgeon, a lusty Buddhist bonze, an escaped Dutch prisoner and a young woman who gave up prostitution and now works for him as his housekeeper. His son is a military doctor in Manchuria (amazon.com)




This may sound like any number of other doctor movies where the hero finds himself in a crisis, doubts himself and his work, and them finds himself again. This movie is a little different. The setting in Japan just before the country collapses at the end of WWII is unusual. The dark side of things is explicit in the last third of the movie. And although the conclusion offers a sense of personal hope, it's against a scene where the doctor and his young housekeeper, on a boat returning from a visit to a patient and where the two just might be finding a relationship, see far in the distance a cloud from one of the atom bombs. (amazon.com)