#53: KUROSAWA, Akira: Sanjuro (1962)

KUROSAWA, Akira (Japan)

Sanjuro [1962]

Spine #53

DVD/Blu-ray (1999/2006)

1999 synopsis

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa’s tightly paced, beautifully-composed Sanjuro. In this companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear. Criterion is proud to present Sanjuro in a gorgeous Tohoscope transfer.

2006 synopsis

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa’s tightly-paced, beautifully composed Sanjuro. In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but just as engaging, this classic character’s return is a masterpiece in its own right, now presented in a new high-definition transfer.

2010 synopsis

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Kurosawa’s tightly-paced, beautifully composed Sanjuro. In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but just as engaging, this classic character’s return is a masterpiece in its own right.

96 minutes

Black & White

Monaural

2:35:1 aspect ratio

in Japanese

Criterion Release 1999/2006/2010

Director/Writers

From the novel by Shûgôro Yamamoto.

Screenplay by Ryûzô Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, and Akira Kurosawa.

Kurosawa was 52 when he directed Sanjuro.

Other Kurosawa films in the Collection:

Eclipse Series 23: Sanshiro Sugata (1943)
Eclipse Series 23: The Most Beautiful (1944)
Eclipse Series 23: Sanshiro Sugata, Part Two (1945)
Eclipse Series 23: The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail (1945)
Eclipse Series 7: No Regrets For Our Youth (1946)

Eclipse Series 7: One Wonderful Sunday (1947)
#413: Drunken Angel (1948)

#233: Stray Dog (1949)
#138: Rashomon (1950)

Eclipse Series 7: Scandal (1950)
Eclipse Series 7: The Idiot (1951)
#221: Ikiru (1952)
#2: Seven Samurai (1954)
Eclipse Series 7: I Live In Fear (1955)

#190: Throne Of Blood (1957)
#239: The Lower Depths (1957)
#116: The Hidden Fortress (1958)

#319: The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
#52: Yojimbo (1961)

#24: High And Low (1963)
#159: Red Beard (1965)
#465: Dodes'ka-den (1970)
#267: Kagemusha (1980)
#316: Ran (1985)

#842: Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)

The Film

This is Kurosawa’s 21st film.

It would be logical to assume that this was written after the incredible success of Yojimbo (1961) {Spine #52}, but it would not be true.

Kurosawa and his writing collaborators started working on the screenplay (based on a story by Shûgorô Yamamoto — Hibi Heian [“A Break in the Tranquility”] — with a samurai hero who uses his “brains more than his sword,” before shooting on Yojimbo began. Kurosawa had planned to give it to his friend Hiromichi Horikawa to direct, but Toho — probably sensing an awesome Criterion box set (LOL) — insisted that Kurosawa direct it himself.

The main difference between the two films is this: Yojimbo was set in a dusty town in the middle of nowhere where lawlessness reigned, whereas this film is set in a “castle town” — that is, in a world full of lords and ladies, superintendents and chamberlains, young samurai retainers and, of course, our ronin hero, Sanjuro.

Nothing is what it seems.

Mutsuta (Yûnosuke Itô) is homely, and he’s the good guy; and the handsome Muroto (Tatsuya Nakadai) is the villain. The overconfident boy samurai are incompetent, while the scruffy Sanjuro is a master. Et cetera. This theme drives the plot and provides great opportunities for ironic humor.

Masaru Satô turns in another gem of a score! Listen to the general tone of the introduction going into the familiar Yojimbo theme — one can feel something more serious, more sinister in the air … jingling marimbas and the constant sound of the hyoshigi clapping … the score mirrors Kurosawa’s intention to deceive, sounding faux-heroic fanfares and the like.

0:02:24: The hyoshigi signals a triple axial cut into the shrine where nine young samurai are gathered:

1. Yûzô Kayama (Yasukawa) (he will co-star with Mifune in a few years on Red Beard [1965] {Spine #159})
2. Akira Kubo (Miki in Throne of Blood [1957] {Spine #190})
3. Hiroshi Tachikawa (four films with AK)
4. Yoshio Tsuchiya (nine films with AK, including Rikichi in Seven Samurai [1956] {Spine #2})
5. Kunie Tanaka (four films with AK)
6. Tatsuyoshi Ehara
7. Akihiko Hirata
8. Kenzô Matsui
9. Tatsuhiko Namisato

Twenty-four cuts in about 90 seconds take us from the confident boy samurai yapping about the situation to Mifune’s yawn.

0:04:30: Establishing his look — sandals tucked inside his kimono — he scratches himself (ronin probably had fleas as a condition of their itinerant life). Mifune is astonishing.

0:06:35: “What does a worthless ronin know?”

0:07:43: Up until this moment, Sanjuro is merely amused. But when he realizes the danger, Kurosawa emphasizes the moment with an ECU on Mifune.

0:11:12: Sanjuro fights the superintendent’s men with the butt of his sword the entire time (killing no one) against men who are fighting with blades … he beats them all impressively.

0:12:46: As the boys pop from the floorboards, Satô mickey-mouses the scene.

0:12:56: A wipe, and the boys bow deeply to Sanjuro. He asks for some money and prepares to leave. “Abayo” (“bye”), he says. The deep bow, the abayo, will all be paralleled in the final scene.

0:17:00: The ten men fill the frame. Moving “like a centipede” was once “like goldfish dung.” (Original 1999 Criterion DVD trailer) …

0:19:31: The group dynamic is explosive. The young samurai — although grateful to Sanjuro for everything he has done — are not thrilled with his attitude and casual way that he speaks about the “old lady,” etc. Yasukawa reproaches Sanjuro.

0:19:42: A jump cut that breaks every rule in the book. The camera is underneath a wooden cart, peering up a Sanjuro and the nine boys through the openings of the cart. A magnificent shot.

0:21:13: “Were you born in the Year of the Ox? You always fly off the handle.”

0:21:37: Fast cutting on the running samurai, with a faux-heroic fanfare cue. This is similar to the same type of scene in Seven Samurai where Kurosawa was not being ironic.

0:25:28: The rescue is over in eight seconds!

0:28:57: Mutsuta’s wife (Takako Irie): “Killing people is a bad habit.” CU on Mifune, looking as if his own mother had just scolded him.

0:29:07: CU on Irie shows her blackened teeth (ohaguro) as she comments how Sanjuro “glistens too brightly” and is “like a sword without a sheath.” She is the only character who can humble Sanjuro.

0:31:47: Paralleling a similar scene in Yojimbo:

• “Got any sake?”
• “This is no time for drinking. We need to plan our next steps.”
• “I’m smarter when I drink.”

0:33:37: The “what-is-your-name?” scene. The dialogue is identical to its twin in scene in Yojimbo, except instead of kuwabatake (mulberry field) he sees tsubaki (camellias). The joke about thirty (sanjuro) going on forty is the same in both versions.

0:35:10: A (loudly) falling camellia introduces two more bad guys — Kurosawa regulars Takashi Shimura (Kurofuji) and Kamatari Fujiwara (Takebayashi).

0:42:07: One of the funniest sequences in the film — Sanjuro is trying to take a nap, but the boys keep interrupting him. Kurosawa wipes furiously throughout.

1:14:50: The spy in the closet (Keiju Kobayashi) realizes the crucial fact about the temple not having a second floor. Satô’s cue here accentuates the nervousness.

1:25:23: Satô’s cue as the camellias float down the stream is beautiful. Just a dry xylophone/glockenspiel strike (twice) followed by a simple soft dominant seventh chord … then the big “Sanjuro” theme as the boys rush out and Mutsuta’s wife says “how beautiful” (the flowers vs. the war) …

1:26:04: Kurosawa loves his codas. This one is 96 seconds and Kurosawa wants us to pay attention to the reactions of Kikui (Masao Shimizu) and Muroto.

• The initial establishing shot is epic — the horses thunder by (camera at ground level), followed by many extras playing spearmen and infantry.
• After the gate is opened, notice how the camera cranes up to catch all the action as the women mass together at the entrance.
• Kikui and Muroto exchange worried glances as they dismount — a nice axial cut shows Muroto’s reaction and /cut / the rock with the ropes cut.
• Through the wire mesh, Kurofuji and Takebayashi look pretty sad.
• Again, Muroto looks at the cut ropes. An axial cut shows us the helplessness on his face.
• Muroto leaves; Kikui sinks to his knees and — in a gorgeous parallel to 0:35:10 — a camellia (loudly) falls into the stream!
• Notice the rock with the ropes on the left as the camera tracks the lone camellia.

1:27:40: With only a few moments left, we finally meet the chamberlain, Mutsuta.

1:27:48: “This one’s late!” he says, pointing to Sanjuro’s empty place setting. Hopefully, the non-Japanese audience gets the fact that feudalism meant that a ronin such as Sanjuro would have been expected to accept the offer to join the clan (most ronin would have jumped at the opportunity for employment).

1:29:25: The “horse face” story is funny and reused in Kurosawa’s final film, Madadayo (1993).

1:31:00: This one-second cut is one of the prettiest in the film. Mutsuta is saying how Sanjuro would not want to be confined by joining the clan and points to the clan kimono, obi and fan — in a tight close-up.

1:32:28: “No matter what, you all stay out of this!” he yells to the boys. They prepare to duel. Complete stillness for 36 seconds until

1:33:14:

• Nakadai was all wired up but knew only that “something” was going to happen. Kurosawa wanted his reactions to be as spontaneous as possible.
• For six seconds, he cuts three separate reaction inserts showing all nine samurai in groups of three. My favorite reaction is Tanaka, who looks as if he’s thinking, “man that was so cool.”
• Less is more from the composer. Just a burst of electronic sound after the actual sound of the slash/spurt.

1:34:22: One last magnificent composition. Sanjuro looks down at the dead Muroto. The boys all back up in horror.

1:34:27: “He was just like me” — note the blocking; five on Mifune’s left and four on his right. You can watch this cut ten times, studying each character’s facial expressions!

1:35:04: “Stop following me, or I’ll kill you!” Note the tender music under his gruff harumphing.

• Abayo!

There are 21 wipes in this film, all horizontal (16L/5R). In Yojimbo, the ratio was (9L/15R).

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklet

1999: Six-page wraparound featuring an essay by Michael Sragow.

2006/2010: Twenty-page booklet featuring an essay Kurosawa on Sanjuro; Sragow essay; Kurosawa’s Collaborators in Their Own Words.

Kurosawa:

“Each time we revised the script, Sanjuro got more athletic, better with the sword. Eventually, we used only a third of the original script and included lots of action not in the original.”

Sragow:

“In Yojimbo, he’s the perfect man to clean up a town filled with homicidal grotesques (by killing off just about everyone), in Sanjuro, he’s a Japanese bull in a china shop.

Production designer Yoshirô Muraki:

“Every camellia flower you see in Sanjuro is artificial. The leaves aren’t camellia leaves either. The problem with real camellia leaves is that they curl up at the bottom, which makes them appear limp on film … every morning we’d all gather before shooting started to stick artificial flowers and sakaki leaves on the camellia branches. A nearby shrine let us use the leaves of the sakaki in their compound, so that by the time we finished, their poor tree was completely bald!”

Kobayashi:

“There is a scene where the three of us guarding the women are overwhelmed by Sanjuro. The script reads, ‘one of the guards is struck so hard in the solar plexus by the butt of Sanjuro’s sword that his whole body is propelled into the air.’ Well, I was new to the Kurosawa gang, so Mifune went out of his way to prepare me for what was about to happen. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to have to really hit you. Otherwise it won’t work.’ I wrapped a protective plate of the kind women wear under their obis around my belly and waited. And, boy, did Mifune hit me! Knocked me head over heels next to the pond. We rehearsed the scene a number of times. Each time, I would end up all muddy, and each time the wardrobe people would wash and iron my hakama for the next run-through. Then someone would shout, ‘Test!’ And I’d go flying into the mud once again.”

Script assistant Teruyo Nogami (with AK since Rashomon [1950] {Spine #138})

“The camera follows a single white camellia blossom as it falls from the branch, plops in the water, and floats downstream to the mansion next door. A most stylish sequence … one of the hairdressers, a woman named Shige, suggested a way to make sure the flower plopped in the water at just the right time, without giving the trick away. Kurosawa had thought of using piano wire or silk thread but worried they might catch the light when they moved. Shige suggested unraveling a woman’s stocking and using the thread from that. Nylon was strong, she said, and so thin as to be almost invisible. So we lined up several nylon threads together and attached them to the flower. It worked perfectly: when the time came, we cut the threads and the flower fell. Kurosawa told me later that his joy at that moment was indescribable.”

Commentary

By Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince.

Along with Donald Richie, the Kurosawa expert!

Documentary

On the making of Sanjuro, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create.

Stills galleries of behind-the-scenes photos

Original theatrical trailer, with rare behind-the-scenes footage

Extras Rating (0-40):

37

56 + 37 =

93

By Director
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