- A drunken doctor with a hot temper and a violence-prone gangster with tuberculosis form a quicksilver bond.
- After a battle with rival criminals, a small-time gangster is treated by an alcoholic doctor in post-war Japan. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster's tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment for it. The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster's former boss is released from prison and seeks to take over his gang once again. The ailing young man loses his status as gang boss and becomes ostracised, and eventually confronts his former boss in a battle to the death.—Bernard Keane <BKeane2@email.dot.gov.au>
- In the post-war WWII Tokyo, the Yakuza gangster Matsunaga seeks the alcoholic Doctor Sanada to remove a bullet from his hand, and he warns Matsunaga that he has tuberculosis and needs treatment. The bully Matsunaga keeps his arrogant position of tough Yakuza leader in a troubled relationship with Dr. Sanada, but follows his recommendation and stops drinking and smoking. When the former boss Okada is released from prison, Matsunaga starts drinking and smoking again with his Okada and his illness worsens. Later Okada threatens Dr. Sanada and his nurse Miyo and Matsunaga decides to meets the Yakuza boss invoking their code of honor to help the physician; however, he finds that he is expendable in the underworld where he once ruled.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- A drunken doctor with a hot temper works in a village whose most prominent geographical feature is a disease-ridden sump. Businesses and social life are infected by the yakuza, or mob. The leading gangster in the village comes to the doctor one night with a bullet lodged in his hand. It's clear this violence-prone young man also has tuberculosis. The doctor and gangster form a quicksilver bond that partly involves the older medical man keeping the young tough alive and well; but it is also marked by shouting, shoving, throwing punches and throwing nearby objects at each other. Meanwhile, the old gang boss is back out of prison. He's eager to have his old turf back and eager to reestablish ties with his wife, whom he infected with venereal disease and who now works as an assistant to the doctor.—J. Spurlin
- In post war Japan Dr. Sanada (Takashi Shimura) runs a clinic on the edge of a sewage dump on a slum-ridden area of the city, attempting to deal with the ills and sickness of the citizentry as best as he can with a limited ration of medical goods. One evening Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune) a young man comes to him with an injured left hand telling the doctor that he caught the hand in a door. When Sanada operates he discovers a bullet is lodged in the hand and realizes that he is dealing with a young gangster from the neighborhood. Sanada sees something of himself in the proud Matsunaga and when he notices a persistent cough from the young thug examines him further and discovers a problem with one of the young man's lungs and instruct him to get X-rays to be sure. Matsunaga angrily reacts, accusing the doctor of trying to swindle him and storms out. Eventually Sanada convinces Matsunaga to take a cure for the lingering Tuburculosis that he has contracted, but when the former gang boss Okada (Reisaburo Yamamoto) returns from prision and reforms his former gang he pulls Matsunaga into a life of debauchery with smoking and drinking which causes his health to fall drastically. At one point when Matsunaga begins coughing up blood, Okada steals his girl and kicks him out of the gang, while Sanada attempts to convince the young proud gangster to stop in order to save his own life. As an act of reaffirming his place as a virile presence Matsunaga rises from his sick bed and confronts Okada.
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