"Sanjuro" (Language - Japanese) (1962) - Movie Classics

If “Yojimbo” is a terrific entertainer then “Sanjuro” is as entertaining as that but a more powerful movie. There is no continuation of “Yojimbo” rather it is the next assignment, the name less Samurai who calls himself Sanjuro takes up for himself. Definitely there is a maturity in the character of him. In “Yojimbo” he does not care to kill couple of more people to attain his way of justice or good deed for his content. Out here he gets a lesson in violence. And he gets it in the most unlikely place possible, from a woman. A woman whose calm face with words of wisdom turns him into a different person and it is revealed at the end, which is one of the best stunts and I can see where Tarantino got his inspiration for “Kill Bill : Vol. 2” climax. There is no five point heartache technique, but sure it is sudden, brutal and solid.

This movie does not take time as “Yojimbo” does to lay the proper platform. It starts right away from the first sequence. We see nine Samurais who are discussing their way of overthrowing corruption in the clan. The leader of them says his encounter with his uncle who is the Chamberlain and the Superintendent. At the end of their discussion, comes a voice from the dark to throw some light on their observation. Sure this movie centers on the heroic nature of Sanjuro. He is been given the status of high acclaim, but it is getting proved in every instance. We feel the self indulgence but he deserves the mention. Toshirô Mifune reprises the character and without saying he brings in what it is needed. He is sarcastic and in this there is more action than “Yojimbo”. And to the contrast, this is where the concept of non-violence is been dealt in detail.

The nine Samurais are good men with conscience but they lack the co-ordination and the character. Sanjuro who is not afraid on what he wants to speak, points out their flaws. His previous encounters may have pushed him to aid the headless group to attain their goal. I guess he got tired of playing the bad game of killing everyone and watching it, even though they are bad people. In this mentality when he saves the wife of the Chamberlain, he gets the advice of his life. It is not about the strength of over powering another individual through sword or physical power. It is the way of directing and generating into a focused area to do good deeds in the most calm and composed fashion. Even though he is portrayed as a strong headed and sharp tongued person, he does not shut himself in the shell of pride and glory. He learns from it. He realizes the mistakes he has done. It is very beautifully shown of his conscience being hurt by not looking Eye to eye the lady who told him the truth of violence. He knows his mistake and whenever the lady starts speaking he is afraid of how much truth she is going to expose him to. He begins to respect her and accept his madness. These are not shown explicitly in the sequences but the chemistry in between the characters is good enough to realize those.

In this film, Kurosawa paces the story further more. There is not even a minute of slow moments. In “Yojimbo”, as I said in my review, there is not much discussion very explicitly on the traits and values, but here it is dealt in depth. The final show down between the best two is class and can be analyzed for various levels of movie making. There may be spoilers, so I would advice to come back and read the following once you have watched the movie. Everything boils down to the characters of the same traits. They are both best in their fields. They are both very clever and extremely sensible of their surroundings. While one fooled the other, it is sheer luck along with some minute extra intelligence of Sanjuro. If the same clash would have happened at the start of the movie, still Sanjuro would have been shown to come out victorious. The difference is here he does not really want a fight. The whole game Sanjuro played over the other Samurai was to bring in the good at peace with minimal blood shed. The words attached to the Samurai are just words. End of day it is the matter of survival without any harm to other individual. This has been realized by Sanjuro and he demands the same with the other Samurai, Hanbei Muruto (Tatsuay Nakadai). Muruto is keen on cleaning the stain on him being fooled. Now everyone would have expected a fight of five to ten minutes, even at the time of release of the film and even now to some level. I sensed it would be short. It is short. And the effect and brutality is unexplainable. And as soon as the end is done, we get the lesson so hardly learnt and one more sin for Sanjuro to carry on further, but something are unavoidable.