Dr. Akagi (1998)

94% of critics liked it
(17 reviews)
67% of users liked it
(777 ratings)

Following up on his acclaimed and Cannes Grand Prix-winning Unagi, veteran iconoclast Shohei Imamura directs this gleefully ragged tale about one very dedicated, though defiantly eccentric, doctor during the waning days of the Second World War. Dr. Akagi (Akira Emoto) is a small-town physician who… More Following up on his acclaimed and Cannes Grand Prix-winning Unagi, veteran iconoclast Shohei Imamura directs this gleefully ragged tale about one very dedicated, though defiantly eccentric, doctor during the waning days of the Second World War. Dr. Akagi (Akira Emoto) is a small-town physician who sports a prim white suit and straw hat as he runs at full gallop from one case to the next. His diagnosis is always the same no matter the symptom: hepatitis. Along the way, he enlists the help of a young lass named Sonoko (Kumiko Asou) whose mother is a prostitute. Before she leaves home, mom gives her this kernel of maternal wisdom: give your physical devotion away to only your true love, make everyone else pay. She decides that the lucky recipient will be Dr. Akagi. Unfortunately, he has little interest in anything other than finding a cure for hepatitis. One day he happens upon a bruised and battered Dutch soldier (Jacques Gamblin) who escaped from the local POW camp. Realizing that returning to the camp would spell death for the lanky escapee, the doctor hides him with the aid of drug-addled fellow doctor (Kotsuke Sera) and an alcoholic Buddhist priest (Juro Kara). In gratitude to Dr. Akagi's kind act, the Dutchman, a lens crafter in quieter times, helps to fashion him a microscope so that the doctor may look at the very hepatitis germ itself. This film was intended as Imamura's swansong, but in 2001 he came out of retirement to direct the surrealist romance Akai Hashi Noshitano Nurui Mizu. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 2 hr. 9 min.
Directed By: Shohei Imamura
Genres: Art House & International, Comedy

In Theaters: Sep 28, 1998 Wide
On DVD: Jan 14, 2003

Critic Reviews

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Accomplished at expressing the complexities of human nature and emotions, Imamura has captured a sense of timelessness to the extent that we all but forget the time and place.
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
As lively, irreverent, and bizarrely cheerful as any of Imamura's previous low-life sagas.
Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle
Confirms for anyone who saw The Eel that here is one of world cinema's great humanists.
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee
A daring mix of humor and sadness.
Janet Maslin, New York Times
It does make [Imamura], in his mid-70's, arguably the youngest-hearted filmmaker in Japan.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Imamura allows himself poetic touches, sparingly.
David Sterritt, Film Scouts
It falls far short of major Imamura works like Vengeance Is Mine and The Ballad of Narayama.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
Shohei Imamura is a talented director who has a fondness for anti-authoritarian characters who march to the beat of their own drummer.
Chuck Rudolph, Matinee Magazine
At its best when focusing on its motley crew of characters.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
A strange farcical comedy results, that is often brilliant and at other times too messy to follow in all the cloudy trails it leads to.
Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve
Exquisitely acted and photographed with a true feeling for life in a village largely untouched by Allied bombing.

Read all 11 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

Hal M

This film has the basic materials to be very good indeed. 1945, Japan. Dr. Akagi on his mission to combat an epidemic of hepatitis; helped in that mission by an escaped POW; while he manages to resist the advances of a young sexpot. Unfortunately, it doesn't resolve itself… More
This film has the basic materials to be very good indeed. 1945, Japan. Dr. Akagi on his mission to combat an epidemic of hepatitis; helped in that mission by an escaped POW; while he manages to resist the advances of a young sexpot. Unfortunately, it doesn't resolve itself well at all. Not enough is made of the POW. Or the junkie-surgeon. Or the harlot-turned-nurse. There are more good characters here than our writer/director can handle. Then comes the whale and bomb ending that just seems a confession of failure: "I don't know how to end this so let's just make it absurd." Someone called this a black comedy. Nonsense. It's not a bit funny and that absurd ending doesn't convert what was all along a drama into a black comedy.