Short answers, pulled from the story.
Red Beard is a 1965 Japanese period drama directed by Akira Kurosawa. It follows a young, arrogant doctor, Noboru Yasumoto, who is assigned against his wishes to a rural clinic in Edo under the direction of the compassionate but gruff Dr. Kyojō Niide, known as Red Beard. The film explores themes of social injustice, humanism, and existentialism.
Yes. Red Beard was the final collaboration between Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune after 16 films together. Mifune chose not to work with Kurosawa again because the director's long production schedules required Mifune to turn down too many other television and film offers.
At the 26th Venice International Film Festival in 1965, Toshiro Mifune won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in Red Beard. The film was also screened in competition for the Golden Lion.
Principal photography on Red Beard began on the 21st of December, 1963, and wrapped two years later. During production, director Akira Kurosawa fell ill twice, and both Toshiro Mifune and co-star Yūzō Kayama each fell ill once.
Red Beard is based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1959 short story collection Akahige Shinryōtan. Kurosawa co-wrote the screenplay with Masato Ide, Hideo Oguni, and Ryūzō Kikushima. A subplot involving a young girl rescued from a brothel was added by Kurosawa, drawing on the character of Nellie from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Humiliated and Insulted.
Red Beard was a major box office success in Japan and won the Best Film award from the Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo. A 1978 French theatrical release sold 200,402 tickets. Western audiences were less enthusiastic at the time, though Roger Ebert awarded it four stars in 1969 and Michael Sragow of The New Yorker later called it a masterpiece.