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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.

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

The 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.

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")

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.

As 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.

Leave it to Kurosawa Akira to make something as dour and dreary as this, in which a well-meaning and honorable man meets with an unlucky incident, and doing the honorable thing requires him to all but give up on his life. I wouldn't count 'The quiet duel' among the most depressing movies I've ever see, but at times it's close enough, and at its most glum it is most assuredly just as dispiriting as a tale of integrity compounding misfortune. Between Kyoji's unfortunate circumstances and Susumu's willful ignorance, this is far from a cheerful film. That makes it a little awkward, then, that there are occasional breaks in tone of varying severity, sometimes simply connoting warmth and love and at points being distinctly more upbeat. Compelling as the story is it's not entirely even-keeled, and that the sullenness is borne out primarily through scenes of quiet conversations reduce the impact that such a somber saga should carry. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think this is a rare instance in which Kurosawa's legendary, otherwise rightly esteemed skills as a director stumbled, and the success of the picture isn't necessarily his to claim.

It feels like a lack of focus, as if there were something else just on the periphery that drew away some consideration from the production, and affected other elements in turn. With that in mind, even if robbed of their utmost potency, I think the real strengths of the feature lie in the writing and acting. Lessened in realization, even just on paper the plot is absorbing and satisfying in its emotional destitution, with vivid scene writing, dialogue, and characterizations lending some vitality to the eventual theme of carrying on despite hardship. Just as much to the point, the actors fight through the malaise of the material and Kurosawa's seeming distraction to deliver performances of powerful emotional depth. Mifune Toshiro is as reliable as ever, and for that matter iconic Shimura Takashi, yet other cast members of less renown are just as outstanding, or arguably even make more of an impression here. That includes Sengoku Noriko as Nurse Minegishi, a young nurse facing her own trials; Uemura Kenjiro as stricken Susumu; and Nakakita Chieko and Sanjo Miki, who in other supporting parts nevertheless have their time to softly shine. What the writing cannot do alone, and Kurosawa apparently struggled to do in this instance, the cast go a long way toward achieving.

Granted, this is also well made in other regards, including the sets, hair and makeup, and certainly Aisaka Soichi's cinematography. Actually, as the course of events pointedly intensifies at the climax Aisaka's contribution stands out as a chief highlight of the title as it does much to build the tension of the sequence. Moreover, for that space of perhaps ten minutes I discern the keen intelligence and mindfulness that has been lacking in the direction. At the climax, Kurosawa, his cast and crew, and 'The quiet duel' at large are firing on all cylinders, and it's almost enough in and of itself to earn back some of the favor that's been missing. Still, I'm a bit taken aback that for as fine a viewing experience as this may be overall, it doesn't feel like we're seeing the filmmaker at his best, and the sum total is a smidgen Lesser Than. By all means, this is still quite good and worth watching; it's just that for someone of Kurosawa's caliber, "fine" and "still quite good" are a strange step down. Do check it out if you have the opportunity, for the film is deserving, but be aware of the downbeat nature of the narrative, and don't enter expecting the full glory of the man at his best. With those caveats heeded, perhaps you'll find 'The quiet duel' to be even richer than I have.

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

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.

One 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.

One 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.

When 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.

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.

A 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.

What 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.

A 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.

'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.

Duel in Silence is a film by Akira Kurosawa, based on a play by Kazuo Kikuta. It tells the story of a young doctor who contracts syphilis due to an accident during a complicated operation.

The film is not one of the director's better-known works, which is a pity, because I can certainly say that it is worth seeing.

The main character of the film has a very idealistic approach to the world. He is portrayed as an unequivocally good character who clearly adheres to his ideals and (spoiler) never once strays from that path. After the screening, I noticed that subconsciously I became quite emotionally involved in what the protagonist was experiencing.

The thing that probably triggered this was the previously mentioned character trait of the protagonist. In modern entertainment, it is very common to rely on morally fuzzy characters with whom the viewer is supposed to identify, often they are completely negative. According to the authors, this is supposed to reflect a certain complexity of the characters, to reflect reality more deeply. You will find many cases in which this procedure has worked, but I have the impression that it belongs to the competence of very experienced creators. It's hard to make the viewer grow close to such a character. One gets the impression that contemporaries have become enamored of anti-heroes. This admiration, however, caused that in addition to a few great characters we get a multitude of "gray" ones, those with whom it is impossible to identify. This is because, unfortunately, not everyone can portray the concept well. I don't think that such portrayal of characters is a value in itself, but only a certain variant that can be used.

After the oversaturation of current trends, it was very refreshing to see a character that for some may be too idealized, fixed.

Especially since it is contrasted with an explicitly negative person.

From my perspective, this portrayal worked perfectly.

The main character is played by one of Japan's best actors - Toshiro Mifune. The actor used his ability to convey various emotions very well.

There is also a theme in the film that depicts what true love is.

It doesn't do it in a Hollywood way, but more grounded in reality.