Winner for Best Actor (Masato Furuoya), Best Supporting Actress (Ran Ito, who had previously retired from the entertainment industry with the famous statement, “I want to go back to being a normal girl”) and Best Film from the 2nd Yokohama Film Festival, Kazuki Omori‘s third film has an unusual theme, as it focuses on the lives of medical students during their tenure in a hospital dealing, though, with the details of the profession at least as much as on the characters themselves. That Omori was a medical student himself, definitely helps in that regard.
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The story takes place during the 70s, and revolves around Ogino, a tall, timid guy, who tries to balance his rather complicated life, not sure about his overall path. He and a group of other medical students, Kawamoto, who entered medical school due to family expectations; Oshima, a passionate student with a strong interest in medicine; Kato, an older student with a family; Wang, a former baseball player; and the only female, the excellent student Midori, are in the last year of medical studies, where they are supposed to start interacting with actual patients in a hospital. Initially tasked with just ‘office work’, taking medical histories and making diagnoses, they stumble upon a series of problems that make it clear that being a doctor is not a stroll in the park. The overabundance of doctors in the country at the time, the meager pay and long hours for those who work in a hospital, the pharmaceutical companies and their pressure, ‘underground doctors’, and the country’s health system all come to the fore, in their path towards disillusionment.
While, being young guys, their discussions frequently dwell on pregnancies and contraception, they also found themselves with a number of personal problems. Ogino in particular is part of a pro-reformist militant group in the dorm he lives in, whose members are frequently fighting, even on physical terms, while his performance in the hospital and the overall system make him question if he actually wants to become a doctor. Furthermore, his relationship with his girlfriend is tense, considering his lack of time for her, while an unwanted pregnancy complicates things even more. Kenji having a family poses its own set of problems, while Midori finds herself in a man’s world and also questions her will to become a doctor. As the pressure piles up, a blowout seems inevitable.
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Kazuki Omori takes a rather thorough look at Japan’s medical system of the time, in a way that highlights the people within it, and particularly newcomers who, as in the characters in the movie, find themselves in situations they did not expect. The combination of character drama and documentary-like detail of the profession works quite well here, with one adding and completing the other, resulting in two quite analytical portraits. Particularly the amount of detail of the profession is astonishing, with Omori dealing with every detail, from the students having to choose their specialty, to dealing with intense cases.
The way the medical system affects them as personalities also works quite well here, allowing the director to explore his characters thoroughly, and also to make a number of social and political comments. The lack of guidance all of them face, since their parents are nowhere to be found, becomes a central theme here, even through the absence of any kind of parental figure, but Omori does not stop here. The blights of patriarchy are also presented through Midori, who frequently finds herself in the most difficult situations among the group. The political turmoil of the time plays an intense role, with the youths still being intensely involved in politics, and with a passion that frequently led to clashes of all kinds.
Through the combination of all the above, Omori creates a setting full of pressure, which justifies the later acts of the students, not all of which achieve their goal in the end, although the ending does cross into (melo) dramatic territory on occasion. It is this aspect actually that somewhat strips the movie from its realism, along with the abundance of events that take place, as the filmmaker tries to fit in too many comments and stories in his narrative, making what happens to the protagonists rather unlikely. On the other hand, this approach definitely adds to the entertainment the movie offers, with the way the drama is built up until the rather impactful finale being quite rewarding to watch.
Masato Furuoya highlights his inner turmoil, as much as the fact that he is a nice guy in a setting where niceness is frequently an issue, quite convincingly. The scenes where he finally lashes out are the highlights of his performance. Akira Emoto as Kato is good as the ‘old one’ in the group, while Masahiro Mitsuda as Kawamoto showcases the consequences he feels from his family’s pressure eloquently. Ran Ito as Midori frequently steals the show, particularly with her monologues, in one of the most dramatic parts in the movie. It is also worth mentioning that manga artist and physician Osamu Tezuka plays a pediatric professor, and psychiatrist Shu Kitayama (credited as “Jekyll Hyde”) and director Seijun Suzuki also make special appearances.
DP Yasuhiro Hotta captures the hospital setting with documentary-like realism, with the fact that the movie was shot in Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, and real medical facilities in Kyoto and Tokyo helping the most in that regard. Outside of the hospital, his approach is more dramatic, but both highlight the suffocating setting the protagonists inhabit quite eloquently. The editing results in a fast pace that suits the episodic style of the narrative to the fullest, although as mentioned above, some episodes and characters could even be missing.
Despite some few issues here and there, “Disciples of Hippocrates” is a competent movie that sheds much light to the ‘soft underbelly’ of the medical profession, benefitting the most by the characters and the acting.
