An admonitory melodrama movingly sustained by splendid acting. Toshiro Mifune would later play a different sort of strong and silent character (John Wayne's an unworthy comparison). Here the silence is pulled inward, the head often drooped, the silence a wish not to offend. No wonder it's like the female characters are pounding on the door of this tall, handsome man when he cannot open himself to them. He's doing noble work as a physician, and fortunately the sombre story is sometimes lightened with patients grateful for cure, as it is in a way by his irresponsible double with whom he shares a probably incurable infection. Well set-up scenes often beautifully photographed, like the detail of rainwater dripping into a pan during a wartime jungle operation, coming after the surgeon has asked the patient's pulse to be monitored.
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RNQ18 November 2006
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THE QUIET DUEL (SHIZUKANARU KETTO) is among the least famous of director Akira Kurosawa's films. You might assume this is because it's a "lesser" film--in other words, one of the director's few misfires. Well, I would disagree strongly. While there are a few small elements that I didn't love (such as the doctor's almost martyr-like unwillingness to tell anyone about his infection), there is also so much to love--and some terrific performances. Perhaps some of the reason this film isn't as highly regarded is because it lacks the spectacle of films like THE SEVEN SAMURAI or RAN. However, I usually prefer the director's quieter and more human films--such as IKARU, SCANDAL and THE BAD SLEEP WELL (among others).
The film begins during WWII. Toshirô Mifune is a doctor operating on many wounded soldiers. During one surgery, he removes his surgical gloves and then gets cut--yet continues operating on a man who turns out to have syphilis. Now I really wish the film had explained this scene better, as you either can assume the doctors had a shortage of gloves OR the doctor is simply an idiot. Based on the rest of the movie, you'd assume no more gloves were available and if they were, then operating without them was very reckless.
The film then picks up in 1946. Now Mifune is working at a low-income medical clinic and no one knows that he now is infected with syphilis--not even his father or sweet fiancée. All the fiancée knows is that after being engaged for six years and waiting for him throughout the war, he inexplicably won't commit to a date for the marriage now that it has ended. Secretly he continues giving himself injections of a drug to eliminate this usually sexually transmitted disease and he knows that if he does consummate his relationship, he will infect her as well because the treatment regimen at this advanced state is time-consuming. Now the movie did explain his logic for keeping this secret to himself but I still didn't buy into this as in the long run--it would have probably been a lot better just to tell her.
However, despite the couple plot problems I mentioned, there is so much to love about the film. Mifune and the rest are great but I was particularly impressed by Noriko Sengoku who plays a wonderful part. I say wonderful because like some of the best characters in film, she isn't exactly who you think she is and her character grows and changes throughout the film. Despite only being a supporting player, I actually think her part is the best in the film. She plays an apprentice nurse who is very lazy and unlikable when you first see her. I naturally assumed that throughout the film she would continue this way and be a major thorn in the doctor's side. However, as the film progresses, she is revealed to have much depth and is a wonderful counterpoint to the long-suffering doctor. I especially enjoyed her scenes late in the film, such as when she and the doctor break down and cry about his predicament as well as the scene where she attacks the man who infected Mifune. The crying scene was particularly effective, as you rarely see this sort of raw emotion in film--particularly in the 1940s as well as from a man.
There is a lot more to this film that I haven't mentioned including a couple sub-plots. All are superb and show that even though this is a very muted and understated film, it also is very, very powerful. Overall, a film made much better by the director's gentle touch and some riveting performances. -
Every Akira Kurosawa film is at least interesting, and even in a work like The Quiet Duel, which is designed possible as something of a 'minor' work in the director's cannon, there's things about it that are striking and exceptional. The opening scene of the doctor, played by Toshiro Mifune, operating on the patient who will change his life forever, has a double-sided tension to it about not just the fate of the operation but of something else (this helps if you don't know what is going to happen). The way the scene is cut, the effect of the rain outside, the pan at the floor, the rain falling on the pan and making the one louder sound, it all amounts of a near-classic Kurosawa scene. This and the climax are, arguably, the best scenes of what is otherwise a good if shaky melodrama.
The problem might just be that I'm not tuned into this tearjerker side of Kurosawa, at least one that isn't as well-cooked, so to speak, as some of his best efforts. The premise is really good, as a doctor contracts syphilis by a mistake while operating on a patient during the war, and has to treat himself with medicine and cannot find a way to tell his to-be wife about his ailment (or, in fact, why he cannot marry). And saying that this isn't entirely 'well-cooked' is to say that the premise, while fascinating, doesn't entirely develop into a fully fascinating story. There are patches that seem to kind of coast, like something one might see on day-time television (not quite soap opera but close), and it's only in the last third that things really start to pick up dramatically.
Thankfully, Mifune is on his A-game as usual with his best collaborator at the helm, particularly in a scene where he (uncharacteristically for Kurosawa) breaks down in tears after seeing his once-possible-wife off to marry someone else, and there's a strange, cool mixture of musical instruments on the soundtrack- not quite what one would expect for a melodrama (i.e. xylophone, harmonica, harps, accordions). By the climax, as I said, it gets very good with the original patient Takata coming back in a drunken, syphilis-infected frenzy to the hospital. It just isn't enough, overall, to recommend it as highly as Kurosawa's best; Red Beard and Drunken Angel, also starring Mifune, are much better as medical/hospital dramas. 7.5/10 -
jacqui-318 June 1999The Quiet Duel features Mifune's second role for Kurosawa, as a young doctor who contracts syphilis from operating on a patient in WWII South Pacific. This alone constitutes the opening and perhaps most riveting sequence of the film. In the little shack where the operation take place, effects of irritation and discomfort hit a high note with the leaking roof, pestering flies, and assaulting humidity. This shabby condition breaks Mifune's concentration and leads him to cut himself in the patient's infected blood. There is much beautiful play of light and shadow across the virginal white uniforms of the doctors.
When Mifune goes back to his father's (Takashi Shimura) medical practice in Japan after the war, the film staggers in cajoling our empathy for the hero's incredulous dilemma: How to protect his fiancee - whom he has kept waiting for six years during the war - from the syphilis he contracted abroad, yet to be honest with himself and his own physical desires. The movie strives to be the tragic love story of a sexually unfulfilled man, an Unjustifiably Tainted Virgin who pains in silence. He is so saintly that his self-denial (abstinence) inspires a single mother (Noriko Sengoku) to become a certified nurse. Despite relatively good performance from the actors, the story of a saintly individual done wrong by a disease that is symbolically social restricts itself to melodramatic proportions.
Thankfully, there is a subplot involving the patient, aka the agent of Doctor Mifune's syphilis. As irresponsible (and promiscuous) as he is, he gives syphilis to his own wife and this ends ups killing their first born. The wife is a victim in the sense that Mifune contracted his disease, and much of Kurosawa's famed humanism involves the wife's recovery from her stillborn and the promise of her eventually ridding syphilis.
This film was made just after several labor strikes broke out at Toho, Kurosawa's home studio. The strikes had devastating effects on the unity and creative synergy of film talents in Japan then, and Kurosawa made this '49 film under Daiei-- with a relatively inexperienced production unit and using a contemporary stageplay that would not alienate moviegoers. The result is vastly uneven, aside from the fantastic opening that is classic Kurosawa. Further, this film continues the cultivation of a Kurosawa-obsession: that of a saintly doctor who, despite his own faults, tries to be his most honest with the world. This can be first seen in Drunken Angel's Dr. Sanada, and later - most memorably - in Red Beard's Akahige/Dr.Niide. -
Another great drama by the great director with a lot of complicated but thought-provoking issues to think about.
Mifune was amazing playing a silent character who is suffering a lot from the inside but has a strong prudent heart to not to cause hurt towards others, and the supporting cast especially the nurse were great. I also liked that this film chose an unusual way (in a sense an unorthodox way as compared to other films) to not let the sufferer reveal the whole truth to people important to him even though it might have been better that way, because that is a real Asian behaviour.
The main problem I find with this film is that the first two-thirds of the film seem to have inconsistencies in its flow of plot that sort of distorted the perception of the relationships between the important characters, and things only really start to hasten and intensify during the last fraction of the film. This is okay as a story but if the flow is more refined it could have looked a little less awkward. -
In 1944, in WWII, Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki (Toshirô Mifune) cuts his finger with the scalpel during a surgery in a field hospital and is infected by spirochete from his patient Susumu Nakada (Kenjiro Uemura). After the blood test, he realizes that he has contracted syphilis, but he does not have the necessary medicine to treat the disease. He advises Nakada to seek medical treatment for his disease. In 1946, after the war, he breaks off his six years engagement with his beloved fiancée Misao Matsumoto (Miki Sanjo) but he does not tell the truth to her to let her go and find another man to get married. The hopeless apprentice nurse Rui Minegishi (Noriko Sengoku) witnesses Kioji injecting Salvarsan to treat his syphilis, and first she misunderstands why the doctor is sick. Later, after discovering the truth about his disease, she changes her behavior and becomes the confident listener of the doctor's inner feelings. When Kyoji accidentally meets Nakada in the police station of his town and finds that his wife is pregnant, he warns the reckless man about the risk of his lack of responsibility to his wife and baby.
"Shizukanaru Ketto" is a little and quite unknown gem from Master Akira Kurosawa, with a heartbreaking tale about the inner duel between conscience and desire of a pure and good doctor contaminated by a corrupt and dirty patient. Like in "Yoidore Tenshi" ("Drunken Angel") from the previous year, the story may be also interpreted in a metaphoric sense that reflects the moment of after-war society in Japan, where "a pure man is contaminated by the dirtiness and only three, five or ten years later he will be healed after a long treatment". The strong code of honor of Japanese people in the 40's explains the shame that would be for Dr. Fyoji to disclose that he had the dishonored syphilis. His sacrifice, hiding the truth from Misao, to give a chance to his twenty-seven year-old fiancée to find another husband is awesome. But the emotional scene when Kyoji discloses his feelings to Minegishi made my eyes wet, and is one of the most heartbreaking dialogs I have seen in a classic movie. Last but not the least; the story never becomes a melodramatic soap-opera due to the superb direction of Mr. Kurosawa. My vote is nine.
Title (Brazil): "Duelo Silencioso" ("Silent Duel") -
Cosmoeticadotcom7 June 2012The film's black and white morality play, set in an almost junior high school venereal disease film setting, inspires some unexpected laughs, such as when a boy, suffering from an appendicitis, is told he needs to pass gas before he will know if the operation is successful. The boy asks what passing gas means, and others tell him it means to fart. Later, his whole room cheers when he farts. Such antics are obvious nods to the familial comedies of Yasujiro Ozu. The film's title is an obvious play off the duel between the two sides of Kyoji- his lustful selfish side, and his noble, selfless one, although, in watching the film, the title could equally apply to the film's most compelling character, Minegishi, one of the more interesting female characters in the Kurosawa canon (Sengoku's performance is actually the best in the film). She too battles her immaturity and selfish impulses to become a better person. By film's end, it is apparent that her better side has won. So, too, has the better side of Kyoji. The Quiet Duel is an interesting film with good moments, from a great artist. It's not the sort of film that will stay with you for a long time, but it one that you should spend a brief time with.
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dorlago30 August 2001As in "Drunken Angel" this film uses illness as a allegory to symbolize Japanese society after WW2. Though not as powerful "The Quiet Duel" does have some fine moments. The beginning sequence is beautifully filmed. All the Kurosawa techniques are there. The play of light, the pounding rain storm, the purposefully annoying fan, and the haunting music give this intro stunning power and make the rest of the film rather pale in comparison. The acting at times tends to be a little melodramatic but the characters are convincing even if their motives are questionable. I won't go into details. I don't want to give the story away. This film contains what I think is one of the best scenes between Mifune and Shimura. It is the magical, simple, and poignant musical cigarette box scene. An interesting point....... Watch this and then watch "Drunken Angel". Many of the same sets and props were used. Shimura's office in "Drunken Angel" and Mifune's office in "The Quiet Duel" are almost identical.
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Taking a look online for reviews about the Criterion AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa which I have,I discovered that the set did not contain a handful of works by the film maker. Tracking down the title,I got set to see the duel take place.
View on the film:
Lashing the hospital doors shut with his distinctive gusts of wind and heavy rain pounding the hospital roof, with Godzilla (1954) composer Akira Ifukube having a lone, heart beat drum thump in time, co-writer/(with Senkichi Taniguchi) directing auteur Akira Kurosawa & cinematographer Soichi Aisaka get under the knife of Dr. Kyoji with Kurosawa's unique screen-wipes cutting deep into zoom-ins on anxious face.
Whilst keeping the majority of the film confine to one location does create a detached,closed-off atmosphere, Kurosawa reflects Kyoji (played with a great rough-edge gravitas by Toshiro Mifune) keeping his illness secret, with excellent, distorted panning shots holding the audience, and those who want to be most close to him, from getting to enter Kyoji's personal space.
Building on Dr. Sanada treating Matsunaga for tuberculosis in Drunken Angel, (1948-also reviewed) the adaptation by Kurosawa and Taniguchi of Kazuo Kikuta's play, never fully departs from the stage-bound origins,with Kyoji's quiet, painful battle with syphilis after getting it from a patient, being one where as the years go by, (a flexibility of time lines being a recurring motif of Kurosawa) he closes himself off to feelings of friendship or desire,as Dr. Kyoji faces this quiet duel alone. -
fa-oy5 January 2012This film could easily earn a place up there on the top of my favorite Kurosawa's films; I really was not expecting such a wonderfully portrayed story, but I guess I should no longer doubt Kurosawa, as he never ceases to surprise me.
The story centers on the life of doctor Kyoji (enacted by Great Toshiro Mifune), who accidentally contracts Syphilis from one of his operation tools covered in infected blood of a patient undergoing an operation, in which he was taking part. That incident would bring nothing more than misfortune and profound despair to his life, for he would restrain from doing that which he longed for; being alongside the woman he loved. In a few words, this is really a captivating yet sad story of a man suffering in deep silence who, in order to not make the life of the woman miserable, decides not to explain to her that which had befallen him, for he thought that would slowly conduce her towards renouncing him.
The acting is astounding and it is actually one of the most important aspects of the film. Toshiro Mifune, with the obvious help of his amazing acting skills, executes his role superbly, in that the suffering of the man seems truthful. Also, in one of the last scenes, where he lets the woman go to her wedding, his so steady attitude suddenly falls into absolute despair, bringing all his deep burdens to light, proof that even the most determined person has their limits.
The camera-work, just as I expected, is of great importance to the portrayal of the film, it is always in the right place to catch those expressive moments that are so essential to it.
I definitely consider this film to be as important to Kurosawa's filmography as many of his other films are. The film deserves a watch.
My Score: 9.3/10 -
I find Akira Kurasawa to be not just the Master of Japanese cinema but also one of the all-time great directors. The Silent Duel is not one of the finest examples of why I think that, I do think it could've been longer and I did feel that the narrative while having a great idea and having some very moving moments especially in the final act has some clumsy patches. However, it is delicately directed and is made absolutely beautifully with well-compositioned cinematography and striking scenery. The score has a haunting sense of coolness, while the acting is excellent. Toshiro Mifune would give more remarkable performances in other Kurosawa films with characters more multi-layered than here, however he does play noble very well. Takashi Shimura would later give one of the most heartbreaking performances in all of film in Ikiru, but gives a likewise commanding performance. Norika Serigoku is also wonderful, her character is annoying at first but you do warm to her later on, and Serigoku where self-absorbed or touching does convey those characteristics very well. In a nutshell, Kurosawa has done better in my view, but I found much still to be impressed about. 8/10 Bethany Cox
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Simple content, excellent audio and visual.
It's just that compared to the master's other works, the connotations conveyed in Duel of the Silent Night are a little too flat and too direct, and even in many moments, the use of music to emphasize the characters is too frequent.
Perhaps there is a deeper purpose to the directness and paleness of the approach...to give this type of educational film a certain universality, except that it seems to be interspersed with Kurosawa-esque personal monologues and a bit of a conflict, so why not just do it more thoroughly? Of course, I still like that part, after all, this kind of direct pale movie is really not as good as going to see political propaganda really, but instead of Kurosawa's authorship of the expression of the only bright spot.
Women have only one identity in his work, and that is to love. The entanglement around a syphilis patient is actually still a bit comical. -
lastliberal20 March 2009One rarely, if ever goes wrong watching a film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirô Mifune, even if it one of the early ones. In this film, however, the star is not Mifune, but the man who plays his father, Takashi Shimura, destined to achieve greater fame in Ikiru, and The Seven Samurai.
Mifune comes back from the war with Syphilis, a disease he contracted during an operation. He must make drastic changes in his life starting with his finance of six years, Miki Sanjo. He finds the man who gave him the disease, and spends his energy trying to get him to stop spreading it, horrified that he has a pregnant wife.
Noriko Sengoku (Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, Blind Beast) plays a self-absorbed nurse trainee and provides comedy to an otherwise depressing film. She transforms after having a baby she didn't want, and after learning of Mifune's plight. She is a talented performer in this film showing many facets. -
Angel_Peter19 December 2015When I started watching Shizukanaru kettô - The Quiet Duel I thought I was going to watch a movie with action of some sort. I quickly learned it was a pure drama movie. Not that I regretted watching it for one second.
The movie is about a young doctor that contracts syphilis during an operation during war, and his struggle against his desires and how that affect him and his surroundings. Among those people it is mostly about his fiancé and a nurse at the hospital.
I think the actors did great and Kurosawa once again succeeded in making the characters in his movie come to life and feel like real humans and tell a gripping tale.
I have to say I enjoyed the movie immensely, but I would only recommend it to people that are into drama and interested in the Japanese culture and the Japanese way in general. -
davidmvining12 March 2022One of those lesser known films from a great director that gets largely ignored and dismissed, The Quiet Duel is the story of suppressed emotions in an extremely Japanese context that I found wonderfully affecting. I've seen the film dismissed as melodrama, a word I often feel gets thrown around too much. There are melodramatic elements for sure, but melodrama is about tone and delivery. Kurosawa doesn't let things go out of control, keeping things tightly focused and relatively sedate, delivering his best film to date.
The film starts during World War II with Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki (Toshiro Mifune) exhausted at the long hours in a military hospital removed from a battlefield. With rain beating down on the tent, he begins surgery on an injured soldier and accidentally cuts himself on a scalpel before continuing on with the surgery, exposing himself to the syphilis bacteria in the patient's blood. When he gets confirmation through bloodwork, he accepts his fate quietly. Several years pass, the war ends, and Kyoji goes back to Japan to work in his father's clinic. Dr. Konosuke Fujisaki (Takashi Shimura) and his son operate their clinic heartfully by taking in a troubled, pregnant, and out of wedlock woman, Minegishi (Noriko Sengoku), as a probationary nurse and allowing a young boy recovering from an appendectomy stay in a bed several days for free.
The drama comes from Kyoji's efforts to hide his syphilis from everyone around him. First and foremost is his fiancée, Misao (Miki Sanjo) with whom he breaks off their engagement without an explanation. They obviously love each other, and she refuses to simply vanish from his life even after the break is made formal. She needs at least an answer to the question of the break after six years of an engagement that survived even through the war. The break raises only questions with the elder Dr. Fujisaki and the younger doctor has to come clean to him, a conversation eavesdropped on by Minegishi. The irony is that Kyoji has contracted a sexually transmitted disease without the sex. The first concern is one of shame, handled through the character of Minegishi who holds Kyoji's opinions of her against him, calling him a hypocrite. When she discovers the truth of how he contracted the disease, she feels sympathy at how he is suffering alone, injecting a treatment into his veins at regular intervals.
All of this is good until Kyoji has a breakdown. Mifune had played the character as a consummate professional, always in control of his emotions and accepting his fate with an ideal Buddhist calm. However, after Misao announces her engagement to another man, Kyoji cannot deal with it anymore. After seeing Misao out, Kyoji breaks down, and we see the movie star in making. His emotional breakdown is so sadly compelling as he brings out the subtext of everything about sexual frustration and unearned punishment that may also extend to a potential reading of life in postwar Japan generally. Mifune was great, is what I'm saying.
Alongside all of this, Kyoji meets the soldier who had given him the disease, Private Nakada (Kenjiro Uemura). Nakada has done nothing to curtail his illness in the ensuing years, getting married and impregnating his wife in the process. Kyoji understands the dangers of carrying a child while having syphilis, so he encourages Nakada to bring his wife (Chieko Nakakita) to see the elder Fujisaki, a gynecologist. The prognosis is not good, and we get our main contrast between Kyoji, who did everything right at the expense of his own happiness, and Nakada, who wantonly spread his disease without concern for other people. Yeah, this contrast is a bit on the nose and the stuff of melodrama, but Kurosawa's cool hand and Mifune's strong performance keeps it from descending into that sort of purely melodramatic cliché. Essentially, I bought into it without feeling overly manipulated. The characters were well-drawn enough, the performances strong enough, and the filmmaking confident enough to carry it all.
I really did get into it all, and as the emotional arc came to its zenith, I was feeling the pain and frustration Kyoji felt. The lesson is kind of obvious and moralistic, but I felt like it all worked quite well. Well made, well acted, and affecting, The Quiet Duel is a wonderful early entry in Kurosawa's career. -
mmallon47 July 2022For unknown reasons, The Silent Duel (with other sources calling it The Quiet Duel) is the one Akira Kurosawa movie which has been neglected. This unsung medical melodrama has no high-quality re-master, no Criterion Collection release whilst my own hard-to-find UK DVD itself comes with some very unattractive packaging and although perfectly watchable, the frame rate is overly smooth in places (unless you're reading this at a future date in which in a 4K release packed with bonus features exists).
The opening wartime sequence of The Silent Duel is a superb showcase of atmospheric filmmaking from a real master of cinema. Kurosawa employs his trademark use of the elements within a makeshift medical centre as the sight and sound of rain beats down alongside an irritating drip of water and the flickering of lights distracts a surgeon and his aides while their faces are dripping with sweat (not-to-mention doctors who are smoking on the job). Right off the bat, The Silent Duel is a film with many a shot of superb composition with the moment which impressed me the most in this opening prologue is the dramatic tension created by a truck driving past in the background just at the moment when Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki (Toshiro Mifune) discovers he has contracted syphilis. Dr. Fujisaki's transaction of syphilis is through no fault of his own, rather he received it through the blood of a patient he was operating on, although due to the stigma he chooses to tell no one he has sexually transmitted disease and secretly begins injecting himself with salvarsan as a treatment.
Following the opening wartime prologue, the majority of The Silent Duel takes place in a run-down hospital in an unnamed, bombed-out city circa 1946. Like Kurosawa's Drunken Angel from the previous year, the story and the setting may be interpreted in a metaphoric sense that reflects the state of Japan following the war. The main driver of conflict in The Silent Duel is that of Dr. Fujisaki refusing to tell his fiancée Misao Matsumoto (Miki Sanjo) about his condition and calling of their marriage with his justification being that he knows she will spend the best years of her young life waiting for him to recover. However, is this act as noble as it first appears or is it one of pure selfishness to make him feel better about himself in this thought-provoking conundrum? His absence of trust in Misao causes her extraordinary pain and robs her of the ability to make her own decision about the matter. The scene in which Misao comes to visit Fujisaki one more time before going to marry another man is utterly heartbreaking. The two can barely look at each other in the face and it's clearly evident she still so desperately loves him and wants to play the role of his housewife as they take one last cup of tea in the hospital kitchen in which she used to assist in. I feel like I want to shout at the screen, "just tell her the truth, you absolute cretin!".
Notwithstanding, the big show-stealer of The Silent Duel is Noriko Sengoku as the probationary nurse Rui Minegishi. The downtrodden, scruffy, snarky, cynical character was rescued by Dr. Fujisaki and given a job after she tried to take her own life upon becoming pregnant. The character goes through a remarkable arc of maturity as she gives birth to her baby, studies to become a nurse, metamorphoses a more presentable appearance and acts as a wonderful counterpoint to the long-suffering doctor. There is even a hint at a relationship blossoming between the two after she outright tells him that she loves him although this is never drawn upon again. The Silent Duel is based on the play The Abortion Doctor by Kazuo Kikuta. I've been informed an abortion does actually occur in the play whereas none takes place in the film. Dr. Fujisaki criticizes Miss Minegishi for wanting an abortion and even goes as far as calling her a monster. Whether or not The Silent Duel could be classified as a pro-life film, it does take a celebratory tone when it comes to childbirth.
If I were to complain about one aspect of The Silent Duel, it would be the film's score. The majority of the film features no music and thus alongside its subject matter, it has that same feeling present in American pre-code films (which feature little-to-no music scores) of which I particularly enjoy. When music is used it is over-the-top and interferes with the drama rather than contributing to it. In one extremely odd use of music during the scene in which Fujisaki's father (the only instance Takashi Shimura played Mifune's father in their many film pairings) reacts to finding out his son has syphilis, I am not joking, I thought there was an ice cream van driving through my street. The Silent Duel is the only Kurosawa film scored by Akira Ifukube (who would go on to compose for the Godzilla franchise), and I can only speculate if Kurosawa wasn't pleased with the music.
The Silent Duel could be viewed as a public information film on how syphilis ruins lives. Towards the film's end, Dr. Fujisaki has a powerful, emotional breakdown in front of Miss Minegishi, as he lets it all bare regarding his restrained sexual desires brought about by his syphilis ("But one day because of the blood of a shameless guy, my body became dirty without knowing any pleasure"). The Silent Duel is the only Kurosawa film to deal to really deals with themes of a sexual nature, from a filmography which is otherwise very much asexual. Man gets an STD without getting laid, perhaps that's the greatest tragedy of all present in The Silent Duel. -
One of Akira Kurosawa's lesser appreciated efforts, The Quiet Duel follows a doctor who inadvertently contracts syphilis from one of his patients and is tormented by his conscience over matters of love & desire in his later years. The premise is intriguing but there isn't enough juice in the script to keep it running for long.
Themes of responsibility, morality & nobility linger heavily on our protagonist's mind but his inner turmoil, emotional vulnerability & pent-up frustration is aptly articulated by Toshiro Mifune in a role that's vastly different from the dynamic acts he is known for. However, being the versatile actor that he is, Mifune really delivers on that front.
Mifune's quiet, reserved rendition is well supported by Takashi Shimura's composed input and the film is complaint free when both are on the screen. The issue lies with the overly sappy melodrama & uninspiring romance that allows the interest to fizzle out and by not offering enough to hold on to, the story eventually stars feeling like a chore.
Overall, The Quiet Duel has its moments but unlike Akira Kurosawa's best-known works, it is not that memorable and very much feels like a story that belongs to its era. There is a scene near the end where the protagonist's bottled-up emotions at last burst out and the way Toshiro Mifune commands the screen in that moment is one reason why it's the film's only highlight. -
Leofwine_draca15 October 2021A typical slice of Kurosawa with all of the melodrama and attention to detail that goes with it. This feels like a dry run for DRUNKEN ANGEL and RED BEARD, with the doctor leads and exploration of illness shining a light on social issues in general. Mifune and Shimura both give assured performances.
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mberkc20 November 2022What a chaotic but hopeful ending! We almost never leave the hospital. But the sadness within Kyoji (played by Toshirô Mifune) itself very much takes you away, so much that I had to pause the movie at a certain point, and think about what would happen or rather how would I feel if I were in his place. Of course I wouldn't be this engaged in this thought if it wasn't for Toshirô Mifune's acting. And what an amazing actor he is. Also, the scene between Kyoji and his father (played by the great Takashi Shimura) was very sweet and touching. This terrific early work of Kurosawa should definitely be seen by more people.
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komsopoliit8 November 2019'The Quiet Duel' is a second collaboration between Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune after 'Drunken Angel'. This time Mifune got to play the doctor. The film occasionally tends to grow overly melodramatic, but somehow that doesn't ruin the movie's immaculate pacing and more subtle themes underneath. Between the melodrama, there are plenty of quiet yet powerful moments (the scene at the beginning of the movie where the nurse tries to wake exhausted surgeon), and subtle humor (father and son trying to offer each other a cigarette and then a light). Mifune excels as Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki, a man who looks calm and determined, but inside there is a rough duel between the conscience and the desire that the man has never felt.
Most of the Western audiences know Kurosawa/Mifune collaborations through their Samurai flicks, but 'The Quiet Duel' truly shows the versatility of these two artists. This is definitely not the best Kurosawa has put out but despite the melodrama the movie is captivating - cinematography, pacing, and of course, the acting is all superb.
Eight-star rating might be a little much (to be honest, the film is worth 7 stars), but I have to give it the 8 because rarely medical dramas can keep me nailed to the screen. Plus, there can be something to be learned from Dr.Fujisaki. -
gbill-7487725 January 2021A film that touches on several sensitive subjects, most notably sexual desire and STD's. The "quiet duel" is one a young doctor (Toshiro Mifune) has with his conscience. During a messy operation in a field hospital while Japan is at war, he contracts syphilis by accidentally cutting himself and then getting exposed to a patient's blood. He comes home to a woman he loves (Miki Sanjo) but knows he shouldn't risk infecting her, so he resists a marriage they both want. He meets the man who inadvertently infected him and finds that he's recklessly gotten married and expecting to be a father, so through the two men, we can see how the honorable and dishonorable sides play out.
I love the women characters in this film, starting with Sanjo who has some fine moments in the grief of her longing, but even more so, Noriko Sengoku, who plays an apprentice nurse. She had come to the clinic (run by the doctor's father, also a doctor, and played by Takashi Shimura) in a crisis of her own, having been left by her adulterous husband, and pregnant. We don't see it in a flashback, but learn that she was suicidal and helped out by the doctor, so she now works there. In one fantastic moment, she chides a cop who sometimes drops by and tells him he knows nothing about what it means to have a baby as a man. My understanding is that her character was softened relative to the original play (The Abortion Doctor, by Kazuo Kikuta), and one of the unfortunate changes was that while the topic of abortion is broached, the character doesn't get one here, and in fact it's moralized against. Regardless, Sengoku turns in a strong performance for a character that has spunk as well as a soft side. The scene where she offers herself to Mifune to alleviate his brewing sexual desire is excellent. Lastly, the syphilitic soldier's wife is played by Chieko Nakakita, and here, too, we see glimpses of a woman's perspective in marriage.
I can't help but think the infection symbolizes something larger for many of the young men of Japan, who undoubtedly were trying to be honorable, good people but were then swept up into war. Many had their lives ruined by it, and many carried shame with them in the aftermath. That gives the film an interesting extra dimension, and there is no one better than Mifune to communicate the torture of these feelings. The film is a little slow at times but because of the context, the female characters, the immortal Toshiro Mifune, and how it addressed taboo subjects as best it could under American censors, I liked it.