Liver Lunacy: Dr. Akagi (1998)

Throughout a luxurious career spanning nearly 5 decades, Imamura Shohei tackled many challenging and upsetting topics with dark intentions and a wicked sense of humor. The foolish pursuit of a flawed but likable outcast was of particular interest. His sensibilities leaned towards the bleaker side of things for a long time but he concluded his filmography on a positive note. This streak started with the Palme D’or winner, THE EEL (1997), and ended with WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE (2001). Right in the middle of these astounding films is an underseen but essential film.

DR. AKAGI aka KANZO SENSEI - As World War 2 comes to a close, the passionate Dr. Akagi Fuu (Emoto Akira and appeared in the Imamura segment in SEPTEMBER 11) goes on a one-man crusade against the number one threat…Hepatitis! It swept through the Army and now it’s spread to citizens back home (or so he thinks). Akagi gets help from former prostitute Sonoko (Aso Kumiko), escaped Dutch POW Peter (Jacques Gamblin), a rapscallion monk,and a morphine addicted surgeon. After months of research, the military gets more desperate and suspicious. Then Hiroshima is bombed.

Imamura was always in a category of his very own. You can’t easily sum up or describe his films easily and concisely. With films like THE PORNOGRAPHERS, PROFOUND DESIRE OF THE GODS, and INSECT WOMAN, describing what these are to someone who isn’t familiar is a towering effort. These are complicated, bleak, mean-spirited, human, hilarious, sexual, surprising, and unrelenting films with a magnetic quality. In a sense, I don’t feel qualified to even attempt covering Imamura. However, fuck that. I’m gonna try.

The titular doctor, Akagi Fuu, is no ordinary man. He loves his country, fighting hepatitis, and his son (also a doctor but serving in Manchuria). Hepatitis isn’t just some disease, it’s the physical manifestation of country’s demise. Early on, it’s established that hepatitis is his life’s obsession. Everyone knows he’s not the greatest doctor but has the passion of one. It’s infectious, bleeding into his blind faith in the military and the Emperor. It carries him throughout the increasingly bad news about the war they’re getting via radio reports and newspapers. This veneer is tightly wound until his blind faith faces reality head on for the sole moment in the 2 hour runtime. His son died in Manchuria. They were going to cure hepatitis together. As soon as Fuu’s ferver hits its lowest, he immediately doubles down in his pursuit. Life stomps down on him at most turns.

Sonoko appears as simplistic and naive but she's just as strong if not stronger than the titular doctor. The doctor represses all hints of his sexuality while Sonoko fully embraces hers. We’re introduced to her having awkward sex with a clingy client. She stops it and sends him away. For her, sex is how both understands people and makes a living. She's equally rejected and accepted by her neighbors. Fuu keeps reinforcing that she needs to stop and focus. On the flip side, a neighbor asks her to de-virginize her son since enemy bullets 'seek out virgins.' She reports back that the son was closer to a beast than a man in bed. As a kid, her mom (also a prostitute) told her to never fuck for free unless she’s in love. This sets up her understanding of her own personal power as well as setting up what she can do in the future. They're poor and the options are slim, a common but important topic that appears in Japanese film since the Mizoguchi era. The hooker with a heart of gold trope is in effect but Sonoko is a person, first and foremost. 

Advice from mother to daughter

Uneducated, naive, yet with a strong sense of intuition and self-reliance, she completes a missing piece of Fuu's life and vice versa. Her dad dies early on and she’s the breadwinner now. This sets up the most complicated aspect of DR. AKAGI. Imamura usually has incest crop up somewhere. It’s here but not in the usual way. Sonoko is not only the nurse but she fulfills also both a wife and child role. Their chemistry is subtly off-putting from the start before develops into a complex, uncomfortable love. His passion entrances her. They go on their Don Quixote quest together while becoming the family that both of them need. They’re functionally a married couple with a parent/child dynamic. The delicate balance between just being crass for crass sake and artistic intent here is a mile tall high-wire act, only Imamura and few others could achieve.

Japan is on the ropes. Hitler’s dead. The Americans are coming. The emperor failed his empire. Despite all the clear signs, everyone tries to remain hopeful in front of the oncoming the mushroom cloud. The imminent future won’t be pleasant. Akagi’s crusade to cure Japan of hepatitis to help them the war is profoundly absurd. He witnesses the Hiroshima bombing, but to him it’s an omen of a giant liver reigniting his crusade against the disease. While Akagi fights his white whale, Sonoko is dedicated to killing a whale for her true love. Her dad killed a whale by himself so she can too. 

This isn’t the end of the failure. The military comes out looking the most humiliated and distraught. We first see them as a powerful force keeping POWs within a brutal camp. By the end, prisoners have escaped, soldiers are seen less and less, and they’re training old women to use bamboo spears. Failure isn’t the subtext, it’s the fucking text. That said though, it never feels hopeless. 

Whaling runs in the her family as well.

The bleak anger of VENGEANCE IS MINE could have been here but it’s deftly avoided. The war will end soon but they don’t know when. It makes sense that you’d try to grasp onto anything to stay afloat. Their future is uncertain. If you know post-war history, things are about to get real complicated real fast. The clash of opposing ideals stretches into Akagi’s own practice. Instead of turning in a wounded Dutch POW, he treats him like any other patient. It’s part of his oath as a medical professional. Passion overturns his patriotism. It’s a dangerous choice but a necessary one. 

Sonoko’s quest to kill a whale solo for her one true love is based on a misunderstanding. Her dad had help when he killed a whale. It can be verified by their neighbors but her blind faith in her father’s abilities drives her to prove herself as a both a capable fisher and provider for her home. Fuu is her one true love and by default that means killing a whale to show her dedication. She can't kill her whale and Fuu can't cure Hepatitis. Everyone tries their best. This is humiliating but so incredibly human. We may not have to deal with the same dilemmas but who can say they haven't grasped onto something patently ridiculous when the red flags were planted all around them? 

In the face of doomed uncertainty, any glimmer of hope is enough to continue on. Imamura expertly depicts a slice of life for the common Japanese citizen at a crucial time in history that I hadn’t seen very much or at all on film. This isn’t some 90s arthouse gem, it’s an important World War 2 film that needs to be put into the canon of great World War 2 films next to films about the valor of brave men on the battlefield. Dr. Akagi is one of Imamura’s most accessible, funniest, and flat out masterful works in a catalog full of cinematic monoliths. 

Sometimes Dr. Akagi is streaming in places but there is a DVD and VHS out there to purchase. The VHS has roughly ten more minutes including a crucial scene with an egg.