Sanjuro - Criterion Collection
by Akira Kurosawa
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Akihiko Hirata, Keiju Kobayashi, Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshir? Mifune, Yuzo KayamaDirector: Akira Kurosawa
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 2.35:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-09-14
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Sanjuro - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Trust and Death
Summary: 4 Stars
Sanjuro is a vastly entertaining action film with all the elements of that genre: fast pace, surprising plot turns, and a justly famous samurai showdown.
But the central theme of the film is the difficulty of properly assessing trust and mistrust, and how the ability to do so is an essential feature of maturing from idealistic youth to seasoned adult.
The plot setup is straightforward: nine idealistic samurai youths band together to clean their clan of corruption. The chief administrator is unsympathetic and thus earns their distrust. The friendly chamberlain is keen to help, and they are enthusiastic in their praise of him. Full of trust, they agree to meet him at an abandoned house.
Unbeknownst to them, a wandering ronin (masterless samurai) played by the peerless Toshiro Mifune, has been sleeping in the back room, listening. They don't trust him at all, of course, even as he ascertains that the chamberlain is untrustworthy and plans to have them killed. Sure enough, dozens of armed men appear outside and only Mifune's quick thinking saves the young idealists from a sure death.
Despite his obvious skills in parsing out who is trustworthy and who is not in the shifting loyalties and politics of the clan, the young hotheads continue to distrust Mifune; this desire to make those calculations themselves leads again and again to near-disaster. Each time, Mifune's experience and moxie enables him to evade far superior forces.
At the film's conclusion, trust of another sort takes the stage. The evil samurai who was the corrupt chamberlain's right-hand man, played by the great Tatsuya Nakadai, feels that Mifune's manipulation of his trust was treachery of the blackest sort. Mifune explains that he had no choice but to mislead Nakadai (the details I will leave to the film). Nakadai says he cannot rest easy, and demands the satisfaction of a sword duel to the death.
This is rich moral territory. So misleading the idealistic in order to eliminate them is treachery, but then so is misleading the evil servants of corruption--if you are the evil servant. But from the point of view of our hero, the false trust/treachery was simply an unavoidable part of saving the young idealists from destruction.
By the film's end, the young idealists now appreciate Mifune's ability to sort out who deserves trust. This skill comes only with experience and maturity, and they have received a master class in trust from a rough-talking, uncouth ronin--one of the film's many sly ironies.
Summary of Sanjuro - Criterion Collection
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.Akira Kurosawa's sequel to Yojimbo is more lighthearted and less cynical, a rousing adventure with Toshir? Mifune reprising his role as the scruffy mercenary who becomes an unlikely big brother to a troupe of nine naive samurai. Shuffling into a secret meeting where the proud young men discuss the graft choking their clan, Mifune's Sanjuro scratches his scraggly beard and distractedly rubs his neck like some common peasant while giving them advice on appearances and truths: "People aren't what they seem," he warns the dubious lads. "Be careful." Naturally they aren't, and Sanjuro grudgingly adopts the well-meaning but hopelessly ill-equipped heroes, giving the starry-eyed youths a series of lessons in real-world honor and respect while saving their skins from reckless attacks and impulsive plans. It isn't the subtlest of Kurosawa's films--the repetitious lessons and speeches delivered to the thickheaded samurai are rather obvious--but it's one of his most entertaining. Mifune, gruffly at ease with the boys, is hilariously discomforted in the presence of a cultured lady, who sees through his shaggy exterior and imparts a little wisdom of her own. Mifune bounds into action in a number of impressive sword fights--wonderfully choreographed lightning-quick battles in which Mifune leaps all over the widescreen image--but an increasing sense of waste, of futility, hangs over the action scenes, culminating in a tense but meaningless duel of honor. The accompanying trailer on the DVD features brief behind-the-scenes glimpses of Kurosawa directing Mifune through an action sequence. --Sean Axmaker
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