In this rarely-seen film from legendary director, Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune plays Kyoji Fujisaki, a young doctor, who contracts syphilis from a patient during wartime surgery. After the war, he abandons his true love without explanation. When Fujisaki later encounters the man who had infected him, the doctor forces the man to take responsibility for himself and for the man's wife, who expects a child. Based on an acclaimed play by Kazuo Nikuta, The Silent Duel marked the second of numerous, celebrated collaborations between the director and leading man, Toshiro Mifune.