Undescribable Perfection

Admirable film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Sanujuro ( meaning 30) is the name of a ronin ( wandering, masterless samurai) during the modernization period of japan (mid to late 1800's).A sudden political change has occurred with the rise of the middle class and a more modern government not hinged upon an actual , all powerful godly emperor and aristocracy. But during this time much turmoil and corruption ran rampant through the country as outside influences with vested interests propelled the land into " do or die mode"; change or BE changed. Thus the political climate is one of unseemly individuals whom stop at nothing to cement themselves into positions of power and all in the way be damned to JIGOKU ( hell). But in the heat and lust for power a kindly, old fashioned politician is abducted by more devious sorts commonly associated with their station ( not too different form nowadays). So the nephew and loyal young vassals strive to formulate a plan of attack and brave all danger and cast discretion to the wind to save the honorable old man, even at the expense of their lives, for such is Bushido (the way of the samurai). However before embarking upon their errand , a surprise from a familiar face ( with the same name , look, style,,etc) named Sanjuro overhears them and shows them a more strategic way to fulfill their mission.Personally I believe this to be an indirect sequel, but still a sequel to the previous years smash genre hit, Yojimbo. Aside from the painfully obvious facts that the character with the same first name, style, look, vernacular and way of conjuring a family name from what ever he spies around him suggests this to be a sequel , there's also the constant lodging within temples that could point toward the penniless ronins true return to film, as well as the clever usage of the number 30 ( sanjuro) that shares his name throughout both films. Kurosawa did nothing without thought, and this film was very much more thoughtful than the first ( yojimbo).To put it simply: the first film was almost all comedy and farce, whereas the second film this review is primarily concerned with is much more a tale of the times it takes place in; a political intrigue period piece, filled with action, better set design, props, extras galore, moxy if you will. The directors penchant for tongue and cheek is no more than the veritable "spice of life" as I call it, that all humans whom have lived experience in this life. But even with a tad comedic realism, this film has much more character, captivates and requires more attention and intellect to follow and is just an all around superior film. I highly recommend this to anyone seeking older films that do not reek of unnecessary melodic overtones or dance routines. The best black and white films didn't need such things. Now go enjoy a fine film!

Tosohiro Mifune again plays the role of the ronin from Kurasawa's previous movie "Yojimbo", and both share the theme of a wandering lone warrior in a parody of Clint Eastwood "man with no name" Western movies. "Yojimbo" was exciting and amusing; "Sanjuro", alas, is overlong, repetitive and inferior.The story is about a group of samurai meeting in a shrine, one of whom is the nephew of the region's Chamberlain, who had laughed off the nephew's exposure of corruption in the local government. The nephew had then told the local Superintendent, who expressed belief. The ronin, who happened to be sleeping nearby, had overheard the conversation and warns that the Superintendent is the true criminal...and is proved right when the Superintendent send some assassins to kill the nephew and his friends. The ronin manages to trick the assassins into leaving, and the nephew and his friends learn that the Chamberlain had been kidnapped and held hostage.Sounds exciting, right? But then the movie starts to repeat itself, with people continually looking over walls or opening and closing doors, with the ronin running back and forth and fighting and being upset at having to kill people, with the nephew and his friends being mistrustful of the ronin and causing further grief because of it, with troops marching back and forth. The tension is lost and the latter half of the movie slows to a crawl, spoiling the sharp beginning.

Sanjuro, which is also in a way a sequel to Yojimbo, is quite different from his usual films because not only it packs exciting comedy but it has more intelligence than what you would expect from a classic B&W film. This is because Sanjuro is basically a cat-and-mouse mindgame.Unlike Yojimbo where only the main character controls the chessboard and the rest just followed like robots to the sequence of events, Sanjuro allows the main players (friend or foe) space to control the game and outwit each other. The funny moments were golden, especially the Lady, the confused guard who was locked and the scene with the flowers. Best of all, the greatest gem is the battle sequence between 2 master samurai right at the end. I actually came to like this more than Yojimbo because it seems to be an enhanced version in certain respects.

The conception of the eternal weakness of the human nature characterized all the adventure films by Akira Kurosawa: The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962). But they were also filled with humor and light irony. In these films, there was never good and evil; just two equally evil groups, and the noble samurais talked about nothing but money. From Sanjuro, Japanese people developed a new genre in Japan, called "zankoku eiga" which means "cruel film". Unfortunately, not all understood the combination of entertainment and deep thematics like Kurosawa. Because, even though Sanjuro is, at its heart, an action film, it also draws a wider -- timeless -- picture of the human condition. Those of you, who have seen Yojimbo, remember its mighty samurai who was able to kill over twenty bandits by himself. In Sanjuro he's back and the story line bears a striking resemblance to Yojimbo: two families are against each other, fighting bloody fights day after day and to this situation a hit man of some kind arrives and offers his services to the other family. Violence seemed to truly fascinate the humanist Kurosawa but against violence he places subtlety and consideration.All the common features of Kurosawa's style (which, in my opinion, is a combination of Mizoguchi's lyricism and John Ford's warm human depiction) are there in Sanjuro: the beauty of construction, the perfect rhythm of sequences, lyric flashes of nature, primitivism and fierce simplicity of the characters. The simple but powerful protagonist, named Sanjuro (= Camille), is once again played by Toshiro Mifune. He is an existentialist individual who leads his life without illusions in a world where life and death depend on how well you swing your sword, and power on how well you scheme. Eventually, Sanjuro is able to see the black-and-white madness of his life: "The old lady was right. I am like a drawn sword. Sharp, naked without a sheath. But good swords are kept in their sheaths." So, because of his violent behavior, Sanjuro does have agony of conscience. This brings a little tragedy to his character, although, not enough to make the film any deeper. Besides, first of all, Sanjuro is an entertainment film and an exquisite one, if you ask me. At his heart, Kurosawa was a brilliant story teller but to this story he also adds dramatic intensity, sensitivity and visual wealth which are, of course, also common elements of great art.Kurosawa used to place his stories far away to history where his anti-feudalism couldn't be directly linked to the modern day -- so the studio managers wouldn't get upset. Like all of Kurosawa's samurai-films so does Sanjuro happen in the Wild East; in the violent history of Japan: The Edo period (1603-1868) which ended to the removal of the samurai class (before 1868 it was a class of its own, even though samurais were servants). Kurosawa's presentation of this era is both, brutal and humorist, and his historical accuracy is concrete but, to my mind, he was much more interested in associating the Edo period with present day.Compared to its production year, the story of Sanjuro happens exactly 100 years earlier: in the 1860's, the end of the Edo period, when Japan was being westernized. Surely, this connotation is allegorical because in the 1960's Japan was, in turn, under Americanization and cultural transition: new value-relativism (what the "new" world should be like) and alienation from the Japanese tradition. After Sanjuro, Kurosawa abandoned this kind of adventure films set in this age until the 1980's when he returned to it with Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985).The simple story and closed milieu of Sanjuro are, paradoxically, widely associative. The narrative of this allegorical samurai-film is surprisingly touching and the film is overall extremely spellbinding and captivating. Kurosawa paints his picture of the human condition in the modern society with care and consciousness: people are cruel, selfish and treacherous. He presented a world where a man is a wolf to his fellow man which gave the direct inspiration for Sergio Leone's dollar trilogy. However, all the monstrosities of man are hidden beneath the surface, under lightness, humor and irony.