Due to the huge success of Kurosawa's 1961 epic YOJIMBO, he teamed up with Mifune a year later to make comedy of manners SANJURO. The plot concerns Sanjuro, a man fighting corruption in local government. The director parodies perfectly the conventions of Japanese period action movies and the final scene involves the very .. Read more
| Starring | Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Masao Shimizu |
|---|---|
| Director | Akira Kurosawa |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, Thriller, World Cinema |
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Due to the huge success of Kurosawa's 1961 epic YOJIMBO, he teamed up with Mifune a year later to make comedy of manners SANJURO. The plot concerns Sanjuro, a man fighting corruption in local government. The director parodies perfectly the conventions of Japanese period action movies and the final scene involves the very briefest of duels.
| Starring | Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Masao Shimizu |
|---|---|
| Director | Akira Kurosawa |
| Studio | BFI VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 35 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, Thriller, World Cinema |
| Language | Japanese |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 06 Oct 2003 Production year: 1962 |
| Format | DVD |
Following the success of Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa was persuaded (somewhat against his better judgement) to make a further adventure featuring the self-seeking samurai who uses his own guile and the efforts of others to achieve his ends. Toshiro Mifune returns as Sanjuro, who joins forces with a band of eager warriors to rescue a kidnapped landowner. Until the final eruption of violence, Kurosawa plays the film for laughs, sending up the conventions of the jidai-geki (or period costume drama) with an unerring eye, while Mifune bestrides the action with gleeful gravitas.
Kurosawa was pressured by his producers into directing this sequel to Yojimbo, and rose to the occasion by making his... read more on Time Out
An incredible pleasure to watch... The light-hearted nature of the film brings some truly side-splitting moments to the screen. Intriguingly nothing is given away too quickly, it draws you in... nothing, however, quite prepares you for the horror of the final showdown. I recommend ALL of Akira's films, he is the Master!
Not as strong as Yojimbo as our hero deals with rival factions in a Japanese town. Some great action scenes, strong standoffs and good pieces of wisdom thrown in but I couldn't help but think that this wasn't that different from other similar films. Decent but not great and gets an extra point for the kind of standoff that puts QT's Vol II efforts to shame.