Plot
The young and arrogant doctor Noboru Yasumoto, trained in a Dutch medical school in Nagasaki, aspires to the status of personal physician of the Shogunate, a position currently held by a close relative, and expects to progress through the privileged and insulated army structure of medical education. However, for Yasumoto's post-graduate medical training, he is assigned to a rural clinic under the guidance of Dr. Kyojō Niide, known as Akahige ("Red Beard"). Beneath a gruff exterior, Niide is a compassionate and wise clinic director.
Yasumoto is initially livid at his posting, believing that he has little to gain from working under Niide. He assumes that Niide is only interested in seeing Yasumoto's medical notes from Nagasaki, and he rebels against the clinic director. He refuses to see patients or to wear his uniform, disdains the food and spartan environment, and enters a forbidden garden where he meets "The Mantis", a mysterious patient that only Niide can treat. Meanwhile, we learn that
Yasumoto's former fiancée, Chigusa, was unfaithful to him, ending their engagement, and generating a disdain in him for romantic relationships.
As Yasumoto struggles to come to terms with his situation, the film tells the story of a few of the clinic's patients. One of them is Rokusuke, a dying man whom Niide discerns is troubled by a secret misery that is only revealed when his desperately unhappy daughter shows up. Another is Sahachi, a well-loved man of the town known for his generosity to his neighbours, who has a tragic connection to his wife, whose corpse is discovered after a landslide. After committing bigamy, she had him unknowingly kill her by asking that he "hold me closer" while hugging, as she surreptitiously held a knife to herself. Niide brings Yasumoto along to rescue a sick twelve-year-old girl, Otoyo, from a brothel (brutally fighting off a local gang of thugs in the process) and then assigns the girl to Yasumoto as his first patient. Through these experiences, Yasumoto begins to humble himself and open his eyes to the world around him.
When Yasumoto himself falls ill, Niide asks Otoyo to nurse him back to health, knowing that caring for Yasumoto will also be part of her own continued healing. Chigusa's younger sister, Masae, visits the clinic to check in on Yasumoto, telling him that his mother is sick and wants him to visit. Through his mother, Yasumoto learns that Chigusa now has a child with her new lover. Masae later makes a kimono for Otoyo and Yasumoto's mother suggests he marry Masae.
Yasumoto begins to understand the magnitude of cruelty and suffering around him, as well as his power to ease that suffering, and learns to regret his vanity and selfishness.
Later, when a local boy, Chōbu, is caught stealing food from the clinic, Otoyo shows him compassion and befriends him, passing on the compassion she received from Niide and Yasumoto. When the brothel's madam comes to the clinic to claim Otoyo and take her back to the brothel, the doctors and clinic staff refuse to let Otoyo go, and chase the madam away. When Chōbu and his destitute family try to escape their misery by taking poison together, the clinic doctors work to save them.
Yasumoto is offered the position of personal physician to the Shogunate he had so coveted. He agrees to marry Masae, but at the wedding announces that he will not accept the new position, but will stay at the clinic, turning down a comfortable and prestigious place in society to continue serving the poor alongside Niide. Surprised by his decision and advising him against it, Niide eventually gives in.
