Message from seun

[Anonymous]

Film: Red Beard, (1965); Black and White film
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune (As Red Beard) and Yuzo Kayama (as Noboru Yasumoto, the young apprentice doctor)

The story takes place at the end of the Tokugawa period where a young resident doctor named Noburo Yasumoto returns to the city of Edo after having completed his medical studies at a Dutch medical school in Nagasaki. From the beginning, Yasumoto shows his unbridled ambition and arrogance by his gait and his gruff way of speaking to others. He pays his respects to the Koishikawa Public Clinic where he meets Kyojio Niide (Red Beard) who is the head of the facility. It is one of the classic themes of the rash and unpredictable apprentice meeting his wise and reticent master. As a recent graduate from a prestigious Dutch program, Yasumoto is expecting to garner apprenticeship in the Royal Court. However, he learns that he is to serve in the public clinic, an appointment that greatly flabbergasts and infuriates him. In response, Yasumoto does everything in his power to rebel against his present circumstance; not wearing the mandated medical uniform, refusing to attend to patients, and the like. Meanwhile, Red Beard calmly waits for his apprentice's steam to wear off, always the foreboding Confucian master.

Like many of Kurosawa's films during this time, the hero is confronted with situations where his convictions are truly tested. He finally realizes his own limitation and humbly undergoes a transformative experience, via life and death circumstances, that leads to his self-actualization and a new outlook on life. Through Red Beard's careful guidance and brute honesty, Yasumoto transcends from a book learned doctor to that of a true hero. That he realized the schooling he had received in a controlled, insulated environment did nothing to adequately prepare him for the gruesome realities of life. Only through submitting his own ego for the betterment of others did Yasumoto receive a real education.

This is my favorite film by Kurosawa. All the characters are flawed but relatable. I was particularly impressed by Toshiro Mifune’s (interestingly, his last film with Kurosawa) portrayal of a master, whose mercurial temperament, vacillates between his vanity and the need to serve others. Even as an instructor, he is not above reproach.

This film covers a variety of topics including Confucian Ethics, master-student relationship as well as a history lesson on a changing Japan from that of a Samurai society to a modern, industrial one. For my present first and second graders, I would focus on the master-student relationship by showing clips of the hero’s beginning and how he changed at the end. It would be a great compare and contrast exercise for the students—Venn Diagram or a T-chart will be used to show the evolvement of the main character as he undergoes a significant internal change. The protagonist’s character development will be described by making a list of descriptive words (adjectives and the like) to express what he is in the beginning, middle and the end. Moreover, the students could also write about what they would do if they were in the protagonist’s place: would they stay with the master? Would they rebel and cause more havoc in the lives of many? What kind of life connection can they make with their experiences as students in a classroom? Did the master seem fair or not? Their replies would be quite interesting.