Sanjuro el Invencible

Akira Kurosawa is probably the best Director in the entire History of film-making. He has not been that prolific given the amount of time he has spent making films, but many of these have subsequently been remade - Seven Samurai became the magnificent seven. Yoijimbo (the prequel to this one) became A fistful of dollars - and more recently last man standing. The hidden Fortress became Star Wars. Sanjuro marked the return of Toshiro Mifune as the Sardonic Ronin from Yoijimbo. Yet again, the photography is excellent - the period costumes and buildings beautiful to look at even in black and white. From one of the first scenes, in the grounds outside the Shrine, Mifune shows a 500% improvement in the art of Kenjutso - he must have been practicing night and day! But it is the character of Sanjuro itself that makes the film so absorbing. He is on the surface, a dirty, disrespectful abrasive man - but his deeds portray him as a hero - someone who once was a shining example of a Samurai and despite being put through the ringer still holds to a deeply rooted code of honor. When this shows however, he is most anxious to cover it up again..... The film involves a power struggle within a small city in Japan between the old faction and the new power-hungry one. It deals with false perceptions and truth. Two of the tenets that are at the heart of Kurosawa's films. This is a Gem - rent it - if you can, Buy it!

With a near clean lineup of masterpieces under his belt, nobody could fault Kurosawa for wanting to make a simple piece of entertainment. This simple aspiration did not stop him from making another hugely influential success.

Sanjuro is a loose sequel to the classic Yojimbo. The character is back, as is, confusingly, Tatsuya Nakadai as a completely different character. The landscape and tone are entirely new, lighter, jollier. It is almost a spoof of its predecessor,as Mifune's nonchalant and perpetually unwashed antihero helps a group of goody- two-shoes samurai save their framed master. This is also the first on-screen collaboration between Toshiro Mifune and the young Yuzo Kayama, before they costared to such memorable effect on Redbeard.

Nobody spoofs Kurosawa better than the man himself: this is without a doubt his funniest film, yet he never treats it as a second-class product. No slouch, the director peppers this light romp with unforgettable visual flourishes, enraptured homages to the American Westerns that so inspired him, and an end-note of surprising violence, the likes of which Tarantino could only dream of.

At a fast-paced 96 minutes, this is probably a great entry point into the cinema of Akira Kurosawa, and a film that would be much more highly regarded had it not come from such an established filmmaker.

Sanuro, the sequel (or prequel, more likely a sequel though) to Akira Kurosawa's 1961 classic Yojimbo, brings us Toshiro Mifune to one of his most memorable characters, as he helps out (begrudgingly but, for the audience, funny way of help) with a group of would-be samurai trying to fight a corrupt man trying to gain power. With this film, Kurosawa delivers if not more than the same amount of violence (with one of his finest scenes of which towards the very end), and Mifune along with co-stars are believable and make for an entertaining ride. For those who are not familiar with Kurosawa and look to start, this and Yojimbo are the best starting points.

But to say that it is not one of Kurosawa's very best is not entirely a dis-service to him. One flaw for me was that the story was not very clear on the first viewing, or at least as clear as what I'm used to from him (then again, the samurai genre is one I've only started to dig into). But a second viewing brought it clearer, and was even more suspenseful and amusing. That it is not as satirical (or perhaps it is) than what I had heard is not a minus however. The best that can be said that it is highly watchable, and could grow on those looking for a samurai film with more based on character than on immediate, flowing blood-shed and carnage. The least that can be said is that it does not compromise artistry and thoughtfulness for mediocrity. Grade: A

In Japan circa Eighteenth Century, nine young men decide to present an accusation of corruption in their clan to the local superintendent. However, the group is betrayed, but the ronin Sanjûrô Tsubaki (Toshirô Mifune) saves them from the superintendent's men. The uncle of the leader of the rebel clansmen, the Chamberlain Mutsuta (Yûnosuke Itô), is kidnapped, and his wife and daughter are detained and made prisoner of the superintendent, and he tries to force Mutsuta to write a fake confession letter declaring being corrupt. Sanjûrô helps the group to rescue the Chamberlain and his family.

"Sanjûrô" is a funny adventure of master Akira Kurosawa. The story has great action scenes and jokes, excellent cinematography and performances, I like it but it is not among my favorite movies of Kurosawa. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Sanjuro"

Tsubaki Sanjuro is, unfortunately, not so widely seen abroad (= outside Japan) as Yojinbo, probably because it was not copied as a western. In Japan, however, Tsubaki Sanjuro is not less popular than Yojinbo. Not a few Japanese actually prefer the former to the latter, and it's easy to see why: It is stylistically more polished and smarter than Yojimbo and Mifune is 'cooler' as well - he shows a brilliant leadership and every Mifune fan would be really delighted to see how his young, naive disciples run after him like chicks following the mother duck.

And while Yojinbo's female main character, Orin, is an evil and crafty woman, Lady Mutsuta in Tsubaki Sanjuro is 'irritatingly light-hearted'. But she has a deep insight into Sanjuro's personality and understands him far better than his male disciples. An excellent character, and, in fact, she is the only person in Tsubaki Sanjuro AND Yojinbo to whom Sanjuro/Mifune speaks in a polite form (in Japanese).

Tsubaki Sanjuro is, so to speak, a 'concentrate' of Kurosawa's cinematography and one sees in it every aspect of his greatness in a very compact form. Therefore no one could remake this movie.