The film recounts the experiences of a neighbourhood doctor whose taste for tonkatsu(a popular pork-rib dish) has earned him the nickname “Pork Rib Prince”. When a local hospital headed by a woman doctor plans to extend, the future of the tenement is called into question.
Still and unjustly overlooked, Kawashima is a crucial filmmaker. Having made some 50 films between 1944 and the mid-1960s, it was he who built a bridge between the generation of the classical age and the Japanese New Wave. Absolutely a film to be discovered. JB
