The Solitary Scalpel

The local medical technology at the Municipal Hospital in Xiaoba City, Shiga Prefecture, is relatively backward. Although a team from Keiyo Medical University is stationed at the hospital, these doctors regard the future as more important than the patients and shirk responsibility for slightly dangerous surgeries, thus delaying the chance of cure for many patients. In the first year of Heisei (1989), Touma Tetsuhiko (Shinichi Tsutsumi), a surgeon who returned from studying in Pittsburgh, was invited to the Citizen Hospital to serve as the director of the Second Surgery Department. Dangma puts the patient's life first and tries his best to perform every operation well. His noble medical ethics won the admiration of patients and team, but made the proud Keiyo Medical University jealous. One day, Touma challenged a brain-dead liver transplant operation that was not allowed by Japanese law at the time, and all the contradictions came to a head... The film was adapted from the novel "The Solitary Surgeon: Tetsuhiko Touma" by Minuhiko Ojaka, and won 4 awards at the 34th Japan Film Academy Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor (Shinichi Tsutsumi).