The Quiet Duel

The Quiet Duel
Directed by	Akira Kurosawa
Written by	Senkichi Taniguchi Akira Kurosawa
Produced by	Sōjirō Motoki Hisao Ichikawa
Starring	Toshiro Mifune Takashi Shimura
Cinematography	Soichi Aisaka
Music by	Akira Ifukube
Production company	Daiei Film
Distributed by	Daiei Film
Release dates	March 13, 1949 (Japan) 1983 (USA)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

The Quiet Duel (静かなる決闘, Shizukanaru Kettō) is a 1949 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was the second of sixteen film collaborations between director Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune.

Plot

Toshiro Mifune plays Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki, a young idealistic doctor who, during the war, contracts syphilis from the blood of a patient (Kenjiro Uemura) when he cuts himself during an operation.

Contaminated with this infectious, typically shameful and then virtually incurable disease, Fujisaki returns home from the war to the clinic presided over by his obstetrician father (Takashi Shimura). He comes into contact with the patient who contaminted him, in the process seeing the consequences of ignoring the disease. Treating himself in secret with Salvarsane and tormented by his sense of injustice, he rejects his fiancée of six years Misao, (Miki Sanjō) without explanation, as he does not wish her to have to wait for a number of years until he is cured. Heartbroken, Misao becomes engaged to another man. She makes one last plea to Fujisaki but he stands firm in rejecting her.

Cast

• Toshiro Mifune as Dr. Kyoji Fujisaki
• Miki Sanjō as Misao Matsumoto
• Takashi Shimura as Dr. Konosuke Fujisaki
• Kenjiro Uemura as Susumu Nakada
• Isamu Yamaguchi as Patrolman Nosaka
• Noriko Sengoku as Apprentice Nurse Rui Minegishi
• Chieko Nakakita as Takiko Nakada
• Kenichi Miyajima as the Dealer
• Masateru Sasaki as the Old Soldier
• Seiji Izumi as the Policeman
• Tadashi Date as the father of the boy with appendicitis
• Shigeyuki Miyajima as the Officer

Production

The film was mostly shot on a soundstage

Home video

The Quiet Duel was released on DVD in the US by BCI Eclipse, as the first title in their "Director's Series". It was never released in UK cinemas but was released on DVD in the UK in 2006 under the title of "The Silent Duel".

External links

• The Quiet Duel at IMDb
• 1983 Review of film at New York Times
• The Quiet Duel at Akira Kurosawa Info
• Review of film at Hackwriters