The story begins promising. We find Mifune deep in a wartime jungle operating on an injured soldier amidst a tropical downpour. The weather outside is ominous and tactile, a great mood-dresser that signals bad things down the road. Mifune plays doctor this time around (as opposed to gangster), which compliments the wide range this mighty fine actor is able to embody from role to role. After he accidentally cuts his finger and contracts syphilis from the patient, the remainder of the film becomes an obsessive grapple between keeping his condition a secret from his fiancé and slowly finding ways to push her away. The secret is what eats at him, sullies his conscience, forces him into strained celibacy. The irony? He was a doctor attempting to save another person's life, not getting freaky-deeky in the sheets with others. 

As I'm writing this I'm actually convinced this is a really interesting story. The execution, unfortunately, is really quite underwhelming. Maybe it's the source material being used (a stage to film adaptation that, for me, rarely works without feeling static). Maybe it's that the finished film never felt like it really moved, despite a magnetic performance from Mifune. There are some compelling images and potential symbols hiding in the corner, but it all feels remarkably dull. Speaking of symbols, what are they? A diseased man unable to articulate his condition to anybody close to him, and who bottles up his personality to the point of explosion, might be a placeholder for Japan's wartime defeat and struggling postwar regeneration. It was obvious what disease meant in DRUNKEN ANGEL, but here the disease felt less like a developed symbol and more like a tool of artifice to keep plot beats moving along. I'll need to ruminate on that a bit more. 

What would've been awesome is if Mifune was actually able to go insane in this story (as the original cut had displayed before U.S. censors came in and changed the ending). Apparently though that would've "terrified people and no one would come for medical aid." lol. Mifune doesn't go insane (that’ll come later with THRONE OF BLOOD). Instead, the conclusion settles for conservative safety, which makes sense given the era of Occupation. Overall, this film feels like a first draft that never seemed to have Kurosawa's heart fully in it to refine. End product felt a bit bland.

Kurosawa Ranked