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• powerful stuff

  • sally swan
  • 8/9/12

  penetrating. touching. inspired. realistic. brilliant in a way we Americans do not often experience brilliance. superb acting. culturally enlightening. rips your heart out, then sews it together again--like a great heart surgeon. 5 stars, if you can take it. takes guts to go past intermission, if you are a lady.

• beyond great

  • Pat Boerger
  • 8/9/12

  "Red Beard" has to be one of the most beautifully crafted , personally meaningful and visually stunning movies I have ever seen.I have just wept thru the last quarter of it and cannot give praise enough to TCM for showing this. If you are in any type of healing profession, I urge you to watch this film. It is about all the seasons and pendulum swings of being human: being young, stupid, arrogant, sick, vain, brilliant,high-minded,small-minded, spiteful, foolish, brave, weak, strong, being a child and being a parent, feeling hate-filled,crazy,abused, being prejudiced and terrified , and most of all, experiencing healing and forgiveness. There is not a false step in the film: the acting, direction, plot, dialogue,cinematography,musical score, and editing are sublime.A young ego-centric doctor is "exiled' to a country clinic run by a complex rural doctor and discovers what humans can do to both destroy and save one another.If Kurosawa had made only this film, he would still have been one of the finest directors of all time.In an age in which we are so troubled, his vision of how humans can grow beyond their limitations is balm to the heart.

• Red Beard

  • Bathsheba Drummond
  • 6/13/09

  I had just watched "The Seven Samurai" which I had never seen although I've known for most of my life that it was the basis of "The Magnificent Seven", which I have always enjoyed. The movie impressed me so much that I stayed to watch "Red Beard", a movie that I'd never heard of, and I was so glad I did! What a treat! This movie was absolutely beautiful. It deserves every credit that it has been given. When it ended I felt completely sated, like one who is finally full even though I didn't even know I was ravenous with hunger. This movie is just about as perfect as a movie can get -- no wonder it's been hailed as Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece! There is not a dull moment in it. I was thoroughly entertained, and I thank TCM for making it available to me. It touched me on many levels, and I shall not soon forget it. How sad that I have missed so many years when I could have enjoyed it. How wonderful that I get to enjoy it now -- please play it again soon, and often!

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