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#419 - Sanjuro
Akira Kurosawa, 1962
A ronin becomes involved with a power struggle between corrupt officials and a group of samurai.
Sanjuro marks the sequel to Yojimbo and once again features Toshiro Mifune as the eponymous character (though this time the title refers to his chosen name instead of his occupation). The basic premise also has similarities thanks to its use of a singular masterless warrior stumbling into the midst of a conflict between two different forces. While Yojimbo generated interest thanks to both sides of the conflict being fundamentally villainous gangs of thieves and murderers that Mifune would play against one another for both profit and justice, here the morality is a lot less ambiguous. Mifune sides pretty definitively with a small group of naive samurai who are concerned with the injustices being done by the local superintendent and his underlings. The resulting film is largely unconcerned with exploring complex themes, instead saving the complexity for the various ploys that Mifune and his companions use to gain the upper hand over the opponents.
While it still very much feels like any of Kurosawa's other films from this particular era, there's something about Sanjuro that doesn't engage me in the same way as the other ones. There is a cursory exploration of the nature of violence as some characters are willing to openly criticise Mifune's tendency towards favouring bloodthirsty solutions and force him to at least think about less lethal answers to the group's problems. It does guarantee the odd interesting moment - at the very least, that ending is a worthwhile conclusion - but otherwise it feels like this might just be my least favourite of all the Kurosawa films that I've seen so far. Of course, with a director and cast as talented as the ones featured here (Tatsuya Nakadai pops up again, though he is almost unrecognisable due to this being the first role I've seen him in where he has a balding topknot instead of a full head of hair and a topknot - I guess that might be to distinguish him from the gun-toting hothead he played in Yojimbo) this is definitely an instance where a least favourite doesn't automatically equate to a bad film.
Akira Kurosawa, 1962
A ronin becomes involved with a power struggle between corrupt officials and a group of samurai.
Sanjuro marks the sequel to Yojimbo and once again features Toshiro Mifune as the eponymous character (though this time the title refers to his chosen name instead of his occupation). The basic premise also has similarities thanks to its use of a singular masterless warrior stumbling into the midst of a conflict between two different forces. While Yojimbo generated interest thanks to both sides of the conflict being fundamentally villainous gangs of thieves and murderers that Mifune would play against one another for both profit and justice, here the morality is a lot less ambiguous. Mifune sides pretty definitively with a small group of naive samurai who are concerned with the injustices being done by the local superintendent and his underlings. The resulting film is largely unconcerned with exploring complex themes, instead saving the complexity for the various ploys that Mifune and his companions use to gain the upper hand over the opponents.
While it still very much feels like any of Kurosawa's other films from this particular era, there's something about Sanjuro that doesn't engage me in the same way as the other ones. There is a cursory exploration of the nature of violence as some characters are willing to openly criticise Mifune's tendency towards favouring bloodthirsty solutions and force him to at least think about less lethal answers to the group's problems. It does guarantee the odd interesting moment - at the very least, that ending is a worthwhile conclusion - but otherwise it feels like this might just be my least favourite of all the Kurosawa films that I've seen so far. Of course, with a director and cast as talented as the ones featured here (Tatsuya Nakadai pops up again, though he is almost unrecognisable due to this being the first role I've seen him in where he has a balding topknot instead of a full head of hair and a topknot - I guess that might be to distinguish him from the gun-toting hothead he played in Yojimbo) this is definitely an instance where a least favourite doesn't automatically equate to a bad film.