Sanjuro (1962)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Film Review

After the phenomenal success of Yojimbo (1961), director Akira Kurosawa would have been mad not to have made a sequel, so, bowing to public demand, he rushed out Sanjuro and scored another easy box office triumph.  Toshirô Mifune, Kurosawa's star performer, reprises his most famous role, that of the maverick samurai who can fell a dozen armed opponents with as little effort as someone flicking a light switch, and once again Tatsuya Nakadai, another great Japanese actor, is cast as the ronin's deadly opponent.  The mood of Sanjuro is noticeably lighter than that of Yojimbo - it is a riotous, no holds barred send-up of Kurosawa's previous Samurai films and the jidai-geki genre in general - and the film is easily one of the director's slickest and most tirelessly entertaining.

Although nominally a sequel, Sanjuro clearly takes place at an earlier period in Japanese history than Yojimbo, as there is still some remnant of social order.  It is always difficult to give a precise date for Kurosawa's period films but it is likely that Sanjuro takes place at some time in the 1840s, some years before the collapse of the shogunate in the later years of the Tokugawa period.  Once again, the central protagonist fails to disclose his true name.  Here, when asked, he calls himself Tsubaki Sanjuro, which translates as 'Camelia, thirty years old'.  Since the ronin also refers to himself as Sanjuro in Yojimbo, which takes place twenty or so years later, this presents something of a narrative conundrum and reinforces the notion that Sanjuro is not an individual but a concept - the mythical unnamed hero who drops into town to clear up a spot of bother and then disappears before the admin men turn up with all their timesheets and self-assessment forms.

The Sanjuro we see in this film is markedly different to the one we encountered in Yojimbo.  In the earlier film, the ronin saw himself as an angel of destruction, happily engineering the total annihilation of two rival gangs, killing all and sundry without the slightest pang of conscience.  In Sanjuro, the same character not only dislikes killing, he actually goes to great lengths to avoid shedding blood and does so only with the greatest reluctance.  He is just as mercenary as he was (or rather will be) in Yojimbo, breaking all the codes of the Samurai, for example by accepting payment for his work, but he is a far more moral (and lazier) individual, and kills only when he must.  Unfortunately, he finds himself in a series of situations in which, in order to achieve his honorable aims, he has no choice but to kill, and the carnage he reaps ends up being on the same scale as the mass slaughter he brings about in Yojimbo.  Sanjuro's best efforts to resolve matters without bloodshed are constantly thwarted by the nine young samurai he has taken under his wing.  Ignoring the advice of their reluctant mentor, these impetuous nincompoops cause no end of trouble and you end up wondering which is Sanjuro's greater enemy - the ruthless superintendent and his vile henchmen or the nine trainee samurai who seem to be competing for the title of idiot of the century.  Most of the humour of the film comes from the fact that Sanjuro's desire to turn over a new leaf and live as a 'sheathed sword' is continually frustrated by necessity and the stupidity of others.

The film not only mocks the conventions of the period drama, it also pokes fun at Japanese society in general, in particular the difficulty that the rule-obssessed Japanese have with affirming their individuality.  The nine young samurai typify the unthinking group servility that Kurosawa despised, a collection of people who, unwilling to act on their own initiative, must look for someone else to make all the decisions for them and do all their dirty work.  Kurosawa also mocks that peculiarity of the Japanese to adhere, come what may, to a rigid code of etiquette and always to judge a book by its cover.  The ronin Sanjuro looks like the antithesis of the mythic Samurai - his is bluntly spoken, scruffily dressed, takes bribes willingly (and probably has a personal hygiene problem) - most definitely not the kind of person you would invite to your garden party.  The two genteel women who are saved by Sanjuro (the lord chamberlain's wife and daughter) can hardly disguise their contempt for the ruffian and his total disregard for the finer points of social etiquette.  Heroes are most definitely not what they used to be.

Whilst Sanjuro was made on a noticeably smaller budget and in a fraction of the time of Kurosawa's other jidai-geki romps, there is no sign that this is a rushed job - in fact it is as intelligently scripted and as artfully rendered as the directior's other great period films.  Once again, Kurosawa makes superb use of the possibilities afforded by the widescreen process, particularly in the elaborate and faultlessly choreographed action scenes which surpass almost anything seen in a contemporary Hollywood action film, in both their energy and stylish grace.  The pace and humour are unflagging, and the film gallops along so fast that it is over before you know it.  And how shocking is the abrupt change of tone that comes right at the end of the film, when Sanjuro must finally face his nemesis, Muroto.  It is one of the great showdowns of cinema.  The two men face one another in deadly silence for what seems like an eternity (actually it is barely twenty seconds) and the next thing we see is a quick flash steel and then a gigantic geyser of blood suddenly erupts from Muroto's chest cavity - a literally heart-stopping climax to Kurosawa's most enjoyable film.

Film Synopsis

Japan, sometime in the 1840s.  Nine young samurai suspect that the lord chamberlain of their clan, Mutsuta, is complicit in the wave of organised crime that is threatening their community.  As they discuss the matter, an itinerant older samurai, a ronin, appears and tells them they are mistaken.  He reveals that the real enemy is the corrupt superintendent, who has taken the lord chamberlain prisoner in a bid to seize power from him.  Having saved the nine younger samurai from the superindent's men, the ronin feels he has no choice but to join them in their bid to rescue the lord chamberlain, his wife and his daughter.  Unfortunately, his young acolytes are a pretty useless bunch and prove to be more of a hindrance than a help...