Tsubaki Sanjûrô (1962)

Director:

Akira Kurosawa

Writers:

Ryûzô Kikushima (writer)
Akira Kurosawa (writer)

Release Date:

7 May 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama

Plot:

A crafty samurai helps a young man and his fellow clansmen save his uncle, who has been framed and imprisoned by a corrupt superintendent.

Plot Keywords:

Uncle | Corruption | Samurai | Rescue | Ronin

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Toshirô Mifune	...	Sanjûrô Tsubaki / The Samurai
Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Hanbei Muroto
Keiju Kobayashi	...	The Spy
Yûzô Kayama	...	Iori Izaka
Reiko Dan	...	Chidori, Mutsuta's daughter
Akihiko Hirata	...	Samurai
Takashi Shimura	...	Kurofuji
Kamatari Fujiwara	...	Takebayashi
Takako Irie	...	Mutsuta's wife
Masao Shimizu	...	Kikui
Yûnosuke Itô	...	Mutsuta, the Chamberlain
Akira Kubo	...	Samurai
Kenzo Matsui	...	Samurai
Hiroshi Tachikawa	...	Samurai
Yoshio Tsuchiya	...	Samurai

Also Known As:

Sanjuro (USA)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding) (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:12 | UK:12 | UK:PG (re-rating) (2002) | UK:A (original rating) | West Germany:12 | USA:PG-13

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

This movie was originally going to be a faithful adaption of a Shugoro Yamamoto novel called Peaceful Days, and was going to be made before Yojimbo, which is about a group of nine samurai who are helped out by two ronin who are inadequate fighters and have to use there wits to trick two evil opposing sides into disposing of each other. The antagonists was changed to a corrupt government body and the tricking two opposing sides into fighting each over element was used for Yojimbo. After Yojimbo was a success Toho requested that Kurosawa produce a sequel. He changed the two weak ronin to the powerful Sanjuro character and rewrote the script to match the tone of Yojimbo. Also when this was going to be Peaceful Days, Kurosawa was only going to write it and 'Horikawa Hiromichi' (Kurosawa's assistant director) was going to direct it and Frankie Sakai and Keiju Kobayashi were to play the two ronin.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the Chamberlain's nephew goes to peek over the wall to check if Kikui's house is full of troops, he supports himself on the wall which bends slightly, belying its supposed sturdiness.

Quotes:

Sanjûrô Tsubaki: He was exactly like me. A naked sword. He didn't stay in his sheath.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences (2006) (V)

A fun movie

As a sequel to Yojimbo, it doesn't have quite the tense and biting satire as the first movie, but it's still entertaining fun as Mifune's character causes havoc and mayhem among the baddies.

The incessant stupidness of the young samurai did become a tiny tad bit grating after a while as they seemed incapable of learning ANYTHING new. And you could see Mifune's character constantly thinking to himself, "Geez, these dummies are DUMB!" as their stupidness would cause one problem after another.

I sure wish Kurosawa could have made 2 or 3 more movies with this particular character of Mifune's. Kurosawa used Mifune in other movies and Mifune did a fine job, but i like this character of Yojimbo/Sanjuro best of them all as the samurai character is so grungy and cranky all the time without the slightest touch of prettyboyness and always teaches the baddies the errors of their ways in a way they won't soon forget...