Sanada (Takashi Shimura) is an alcoholic doctor in postwar Japan who treats a young, small-time hood named Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifune), after a gunfight with a rival syndicate. The doctor diagnoses the young gangster with tuberculosis, and convinces him to begin treatment (and quit boozing and womanizing). The two enjoy an uneasy friendship until the gangster's former boss, Okada, who is also the former abusive boyfriend of the doctor's female assistant, is released from prison and seeks to take his gang over once again. Matsunaga then stops following the doctor's advice, slipping back into old habits and going to night clubs with Okada. Matsunaga realizes that Okada is not a true friend when Okada threatens to kill the doctor if he doesn't reveal the female assistant's whereabouts, and then finds out that his boss is grooming Okada and merely using Matsunaga as a pawn to be sacrificed against the rival gang. When the doctor leaves his house to report Okada to the police, despite the doctor's orders to remain in bed, Matsunaga slips out to confront Okada (who has also managed to steal Matsunaga's girlfriend Nanae) but Matsunaga is killed in the ensuing knife fight. A local shop-owner woman who had feelings for Matsunaga plans to take Matsunaga's ashes to be buried on her farm, where she had offered to live with him, and the doctor learns that one of his younger patients had followed his advice and has been fully cured of tuberculosis.
Who does Sanada treat?
Matsunaga