English title: Drunken Angel
In a poor and crime-infested neighborhood of a Japanese city, a strong-tempered, sake-drinking doctor devotes himself to fighting illness amid the poor people. He starts treating a proud gangster who has tuberculosis.
Social drama with some entertaining value. The main problem with medically-themed movies is that its real villain is a bug or another non-human entity with which it is hard to establish an emotional link. That is perhaps the reason why the subtheme of alcoholism has been introduced. But here, too, human agency is questionable by today's standards which deem that habit as a disease. Anyhow, there is a very understated implication that the gangster is a sort of mirror image of the doctor. The main point of the film is probably the influence of environment upon the fate of people.
Apparently there was a longer director's cut which has been lost.
Rating: 51
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