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Dr. Akagi

Dr. Akagi (1998)

tomatometer

100

Average Rating: 8/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 0

No consensus yet.

audience

66

liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 789

My Rating

Movie Info

Following up on his acclaimed and Cannes Grand Prix-winning Unagi, veteran iconoclast Shohei Imamura directs this gleefully ragged tale about one very dedicated, though defiantly eccentric, doctor during the waning days of the Second World War. Dr. Akagi (Akira Emoto) is a small-town physician who sports a prim white suit and straw hat as he runs at full gallop from one case to the next. His diagnosis is always the same no matter the symptom: hepatitis. Along the way, he enlists the help of a

Jan 14, 2003

Cast

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All Critics (22) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (1) | DVD (2)

Accomplished at expressing the complexities of human nature and emotions, Imamura has captured a sense of timelessness to the extent that we all but forget the time and place.

February 14, 2001 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
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As lively, irreverent, and bizarrely cheerful as any of Imamura's previous low-life sagas.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Village Voice
Village Voice
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Confirms for anyone who saw The Eel that here is one of world cinema's great humanists.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
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A daring mix of humor and sadness.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Sacramento Bee
Sacramento Bee
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It does make [Imamura], in his mid-70's, arguably the youngest-hearted filmmaker in Japan.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
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Imamura allows himself poetic touches, sparingly.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
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It falls far short of major Imamura works like Vengeance Is Mine and The Ballad of Narayama.

April 17, 2002 Full Review Source: Film Scouts
Film Scouts

Shohei Imamura is a talented director who has a fondness for anti-authoritarian characters who march to the beat of their own drummer.

March 4, 2002 Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice
Spirituality and Practice

At its best when focusing on its motley crew of characters.

April 20, 2001 Full Review Source: Matinee Magazine
Matinee Magazine

A strange farcical comedy results, that is often brilliant and at other times too messy to follow in all the cloudy trails it leads to.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

A well-intentioned and carefully crafted film.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
Film Journal International

Sheer pleasure to watch, Inamura's film is a smallish work about the complexities inherent in simple people dealing with their own epic emotions.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle

Exquisitely acted and photographed with a true feeling for life in a village largely untouched by Allied bombing.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Compuserve
Compuserve

Audience Reviews for Dr. Akagi

This film has the basic materials to be very good indeed. 1945, Japan. Dr. Akagi on his mission to combat an epidemic of hepatitis; helped in that mission by an escaped POW; while he manages to resist the advances of a young sexpot. Unfortunately, it doesn't resolve itself well at all. Not enough is made of the POW. Or the junkie-surgeon. Or the harlot-turned-nurse. There are more good characters here than our writer/director can handle. Then comes the whale and bomb ending that just seems a confession of failure: "I don't know how to end this so let's just make it absurd." Someone called this a black comedy. Nonsense. It's not a bit funny and that absurd ending doesn't convert what was all along a drama into a black comedy.
April 2, 2011
Hal
Hal Morris

Super Reviewer

This film has the basic materials to be very good indeed. 1945, Japan. Dr. Akagi on his mission to combat an epidemic of hepatitis; helped in that mission by an escaped POW; while he manages to resist the advances of a young sexpot. Unfortunately, it doesn't resolve itself well at all. Not enough is made of the POW. Or the junkie-surgeon. Or the harlot-turned-nurse. There are more good characters here than our writer/director can handle. Then comes the whale and bomb ending that just seems a confession of failure: "I don't know how to end this so let's just make it absurd." Someone called this a black comedy. Nonsense. It's not a bit funny and that absurd ending doesn't convert what was all along a drama into a black comedy.
April 2, 2011
Hal
Hal Morris

Super Reviewer

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