Doctor characters in Japanese movies set in the Edo Period (1603-1868) are usually serious types who serve as beacons of enlightenment amid feudal darkness. One recent example is the earnest young country doctor in ¡°Snowflowers: Seeds of Hope¡± (2025), who battles smallpox with that radical innovation ¡ª inoculations ¡ª in the late Edo era.
¡°Kyoto Hippocrates,¡± a project that director Akira Ogata took over from his late mentor Kazuki Omori, unfolds in much the same period and a similar rural setting, though this one is located near Japan¡¯s then-capital of Kyoto. But Kuranosuke Sasaki, a versatile actor with a flair for comedy, plays the protagonist, Dr. Takichi, with tongue firmly in cheek, as do other members of the main cast, at least initially.
As the story begins in 1848, the good doctor is a practitioner of Western medicine, which he learned at a pioneering medical school founded by real-life German physician Philipp Franz von Siebold. But in the village where his kindly, supportive wife (an unrecognizable Yoko Maki) was born, Takichi comically butts heads with Dr. Gensai (Takeshi Naito), an argumentative quack whose Chinese herbal remedies produce no discernible results. Meanwhile, the local coffin maker does brisk business.
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