RED BEARD - DVD

RED BEARD
A film by Akira Kurosawa

Red Beard, the last and most ambitious of Kurosawa's collaborations with Toshiro Mifune, marks the end of one of the most remarkable actor-director relationship in the history of cinema.

Toshiro Mifune plays a commanding but humane doctor in a rural clinic in late 19th-century Japan. An idle and socially ambitious intern (Yuzo Kayama) arrives at the clinic and discovers the meaning of responsibility, first to oneself and then to others.

This intimate epic and offbeat social drama boldly mixes the styles of soap opera and the action movie, and rewards the viewer with a detailed reconstruction of a feudal era, a warmly humanitarian message and a powerhouse performance by Mifune.

DVD features introduction by Alex Cox, biographies of Kurosawa and Mifune, original poster and production stills

Japan | 1965 | black & white | Japanese language with English subtitles | 172 minutes | ratio 2.35:1 (16x9 anamorphic) | Region 2 DVD

Review

'The film bowls along magnificently in a weird mixture of genuine emotion, absurdity and poetic fantasy.... In an incredible action scene Red Beard erupts into a samurai frenzy, knocks out some 20 men, breaks arms and legs like matchsticks, and ends with a gravely shamefaced mutter: 'I think I've gone too far'.'

--Tom Milne, Time Out