AllMovie

A dedicated army surgeon finds his once-bright future suddenly obscured when he contracts syphilis while performing a life-saving operation in this early collaboration between director Akira Kurosawa and Toshirô Mifune. Contaminated with a disease that was virtually incurable in 1940s Japan, Fujisaki returns home from the war to work presided over by his obstetrician father (Takashi Shimura). As Fujisaki furtively agonizes over the havoc that the disease will wreck on his upcoming marriage, his noble attempts to save the lives of his many patients masks a silent desperation that will likely remain with him to his final hour.