It is said that people are as their name suggests, but red beards are not.
Homoto, a recently graduated medical student, was introduced by his father to the Koishikawa Sanatorium in the remote countryside for an internship.
The young interns he will replace will lead the sullen Baoben to familiarize himself with the environment. His chattering and enthusiastic explanation did not arouse much interest in BaoBen, and he can remember a few words:
The first is the sentence when I first entered the outpatient lobby and walked through the poor patients who were sitting and lying down and emitting stench and groaning in pain, "It is better for people to die like this...";
The second is to come to the backyard, he looks strange to remind Baoben not to go near the wooden house, because there is a "mantis girl" locked in the locked doors and windows, "after the mantis has its tail, the female mantis will eat her mate." She has killed three people through seduction! Pity, it's a beauty...";
Then there is the clinic's dean's strange and strange title "red beard": "As the name suggests, the dean's beard is slightly red, and his temperament is also strange", he said timidly, there is a joy of escaping.
Hoshimoto, who longed for Nagasaki, had no sympathy for this slum-like hospital, and he felt that he had been deceived and useless. And the first meeting with Redbeard also made him restless. The tall, majestic dean stared at Bao Ben's face for half a day without a word.
Redbeard asks Baoben to hand over his medical notes from studying in the Netherlands, which seems to be a robber-like act, although Redbeard says that "all medical skills should be known to the world", which is also a high-sounding excuse in Baoben's view.
Everything disgusts Hooppo, who confronts Redbeard through non-violent and uncooperative actions in the hope of leaving early. However, no matter how tossed, RedBeard let it go, and the situation was deadlocked until the appearance of the "Mantis Girl" that night.
Red Beard went to the doctor, the "mantis girl" fled, and the hospital rushed up and down to find it.
Baoben sat alone under the lamp drinking, a beautiful woman pushed the door in, it is the "mantis girl", she whispered softly, crying about the experience of being raped and threatened several times when she was young, and had no choice but to fight back and kill, while flying close to Baoben.
Drunk and gentle, Homoto, who had been firmly held, saw her holding up a cold hairpin high.
When he woke up again, Homoto, who still had a headache, learned that it was Redbeard who broke through the door last night and rescued himself.
"You just drank too much wine, and you were in danger in the face of a poor and beautiful woman, you can understand, you don't have to blame yourself." 」
Redbeard comforted the panicked and embarrassed Baoben in a persuasive tone.
Since then, Homoto has walked out of his room and begun to see the patients in the hospital with his own eyes, sensing their pain up close—from the lesions and the hardships of life itself.
Red Beard told Baoben that in the face of worldly diseases, medical skills are often powerless.
"Medicine is actually very ignorant, and although doctors know diseases, they are often incompetent. Now we can only fight poverty and ignorance to make up for the shortcomings of medicine. If poverty and ignorance can be addressed, the disease will be greatly reduced. Behind the disease is always the misfortune of life. ”
He asked Baoben to take care of two critically ill elderly people, and Baoben saw their lives and what kind of experiences and pain they carried to death.
RedBeard said, "The moment of death is the most solemn," and the patient Rokusuke gasped lonely and painfully in front of Homoto. When Rokusuke's daughter came to cry about the family's tragic situation, Hokumoto heard Red Beard coax her to say that Rokusuke finally left peacefully, and used almost extortion to get officials to pay for orphans and widows, "Don't learn from me, this is shameful, this should not be the work of a healer," he told Homoto.
The patient, Sahachi, is a very good person, always thinking of others, and working to earn money to buy food for other patients during his illness. In his dying moments, all the neighbors came, gathered around him and wept and prayed for him.
Before dying, Sahachi confided in the tragedy of his and his wife's love because of the difference between the portal, and that the good deeds he had done in his life were based on the guilt of his wife who died early and accumulated yin virtue.
After Sahachi's death, Redbeard frowned and said to himself, "Two more good people have died." From that moment on, Bao Ben understood that the red beard's tight eyebrows were not lonely and violent, but the persistence and compassion in the face of thousands of sufferings in the world.
One day, when Homoto went to the brothel with Redbeard, he found that the old bustard was beating the young girl Dengdai who refused to accept the guest. Redbeard actually fights with the brothel minions and rescues the girl who is in a coma with a high fever.
Looking at the thugs rolling on the ground with broken hands and legs, Redbeard said ashamedly:
"Don't learn from me! Healers shouldn't be! Later, when I get carried away, you will mention this matter, alas, no..."
Back at the hospital, Redbeard put Hoshi in charge of treating Theodai, who has a high fever. But Deng dai was very resistant, and avoided all contact in horror, even overturning the soup medicine that Baoben sent to his mouth.
When the capital was at a loss, Red Beard also sent the medicine spoon to Theodysse's mouth, and when he was knocked over once, he shook his head helplessly, and sent the second spoon, and then overturned, and then shook his head to send the third spoon...
Finally, Deng Dai looked at the ridiculous red beard, and the panic gradually faded, and drank the soup medicine he handed out.
As the young girl Dendai gradually recovered under the careful care of the two, Baoben had a high fever and fell ill.
"It's all right, this young man just sees more people's suffering, he will get better."
This time, Redbeard asks Nobori to take care of Homoto. Then, as Bao ben got better, Dendai also transformed into a kind and gentle girl.
In this small hospital that can only treat the poor, Bao Ben silently practices medicine with a red beard, not afraid of the powerful, regardless of remuneration, only asking about the disease... Time flies, and it is time for Homoto to go home and become a relative, and it is time to end his internship and go to Nagasaki.
At the engagement ceremony, Homoto said to his fiancée in front of both parents and the red bearded man who had come to congratulate him:
"Ling Zun arranged for me to be hired by the shogunate in March, and I had hoped to be promoted to imperial doctor, but now I didn't want to, I wanted to stay in the sanatorium. From now on fame and money will be insulated from me, can you endure poverty? Please think about it carefully. ”
In the end, the two masters and apprentices walked side by side, and Redbeard said twice and three times, "You will regret it later", and Bao ben must firmly follow.
- "You're a fool!" ” - "Taught by you." ”
The story ends here. Red Beard is the last black-and-white film of Akira Kurosawa's career. Redbeard (1965) was his twenty-fourth film from 1943, while he made only seven of his films in the next 28 years.
This film portrays a true healer as Red Beard, telling us that even in that time, even if sentient beings are in human purgatory, people can make a difference. People can not only give themselves, but also give dignity to others, and people can not only earn back their own three meals a day, but also change others and change the world.
Poster for the movie "Red Beard"
The role of Baoben, in the process of assisting Redbeard to save lives and help the injured, gradually discovered the importance of medical ethics and corrected his attitude towards life. In the end, Hobay made a choice based on his free will because what he initially saw as a place of hell now seems to be a paradise guarded by a group of good people that radiates warmth to the cruel world.
The film does not exaggerate the superb medical skills of the doctor too much, but more shows that in the face of the suffering of patients, even if helpless and powerless, he still unremittingly does his best to practice medicine, he looks at not only the patient, but also life, the doctor is not only the lesion, but also the human heart.
"When I was mourning that I couldn't buy those beautiful shoes, I found that someone had lost his foot." Only by truly witnessing the suffering of the world can we understand our own happiness and naivety.
As the five-year-old thief "Little Mouse" says to Dengdai before his family commits suicide: "I want to become a horse — because horses can eat grass — grass is everywhere." ”
Today, people's lives seem to have moved away from extreme poverty, but physical and psychological ailments are still everywhere.
Redbeard is right that the medical techniques for the "diseases" of the world are often powerless. But as long as there is a benevolent heart like a healer, anyone will bring help and hope to those around them, and if everyone is like this, there will be too much pain and tragedy in this world.
If you can, please look at the embarrassment with compassion, soothe the pain with the benevolence of the healer, and let the "red beard" become a guiding light to give tomorrow light.
Every inch feels life, and all the anger is beautiful
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