Waste of time

A Masterpiece!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

SANJURO is action drama and it is a sequel to Kurosawa's 1961 YOJIMBO.Nine young samurai has decided to oppose corruption in their clan. A nephew of a lord chamberlain is among them. His uncle tore up their petition against organized crime and argued that maybe he himself was behind the crimes. Young men are confused. A ronin has overheard their plans and decided to help them. Initially, the samurai want to fight, but the odds are overwhelming, so the ronin hides the samurai, confronts and hits a few of the attackers and bluffs their leader into leaving. The grateful samurai ask what they can do for the ronin and he asks for only a small amount of money to buy food because he is starving. However, a chamberlain who can help expose them is kidnapped and his wife and daughter are imprisoned in the house...Mr. Kurosawa did not offer a kind of wild samurai action in this movie. The harmonic plots are open at the beginning of the film. A crafty and satirical game comes after that. An experienced samurai has fallen into a very strange society and a corrupt political situation. Unlike Yojimbo, this movie is a bit frivolous and far more fun. Yojimbo is, with all segments, much better film.The characters are impatient, outraged and unprofessional. Such relations provide a whole new dimension to the familiar story. Women are a calming factor in this film.A mixture of pictures and sounds is excellent. Characterization is good, with one major flaw, because all the procedures are, more or less, predictable and a bit theatrical.Toshiro Mifune as Sanjuro Tsubaki is just perfect for this role. That combination of a laziness and craftiness, satire and tradition in his character is simply amazing. He is kind of a hero that other protagonists in this film need and deserve.The glory of ancient samurai comes to the fore at the end of the film.

In Akira Kurosawa's highly underrated sequel to the much revered Yojimbo, Toshiro Mifune reprises his role as the titular master-less samurai, this time having the arduous task of cleaning up the mess created by the younger generation of a ruling clan, whose misplaced trust leaves them vulnerable to the clan's true enemy. Set in 19th century Japan, a gruff, disheveled, footloose samurai turns up in a deserted shrine where a cabal of nine young progressives is plotting to overthrow a corrupt regime. Boldly and brashly he appears among them while they have been fumbling for a plan and haughtily takes over the ticklish task of directing them. Consistently decrying the fledgling samurai as "idiots," expert strategist Sanjuro seemingly can't help himself from getting involved with the fallout of their political meddling, as the hapless bunch is desperately in need of saving. Starting with his chivalrous rescue of the chamberlain's wife and daughter from the corrupt warlord, Sanjuro leads the army of warriors on a wild goose chase so the nine inept samurais can free the chamberlain. All the action soon leads us to a dark, rug-yanking conclusion, as our eponymous samurai waves goodbye to those he helped and walks off into the sunset heroic and alone. The fact that Sanjuro is played by none other than the grunting, swashbuckling Toshiro Mifune makes the movie thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. The movie largely gyrates around the marvelously eccentric mannerisms of Mifune's performance, who swaggers through the entire film with a bemused expression - grimacing, scratching, yawning, and stretching in an ironic counterpoint to his character's phenomenal skill as a swordsman. The film's humor arises from Sanjuro's weary irritation and the contrast between his slovenly behavior and the phony ceremonial propriety of others. But while Mifune's satiric portrayal is a delight, Akira Kurosawa sets it in a more recognizably Japanese milieu, with a complicated plot involving political and historical intrigue. Kurosawa applies the full force of his cinematic genius, with brilliant widescreen composition that tells the story in visual terms as clear as the verbal ones. He guides the narrative mostly for laughs, but when the action kicks in the sword fighting is brutal and memorable.Sanjuro may not be Akira Kurosawa's most celebrated work, but you will find his witty paw prints all over the snappy dialogue, unique characters and intriguing plot – an effort that I personally rank higher than Yojimbo!

Sanjuro, which is also in a way a sequel to Yojimbo, is quite different from his usual films because not only it packs exciting comedy but it has more intelligence than what you would expect from a classic B&W film. This is because Sanjuro is basically a cat-and-mouse mindgame.Unlike Yojimbo where only the main character controls the chessboard and the rest just followed like robots to the sequence of events, Sanjuro allows the main players (friend or foe) space to control the game and outwit each other. The funny moments were golden, especially the Lady, the confused guard who was locked and the scene with the flowers. Best of all, the greatest gem is the battle sequence between 2 master samurai right at the end. I actually came to like this more than Yojimbo because it seems to be an enhanced version in certain respects.

A wandering samurai by chance overhears a group of men discussing corruption within their clan. It seems the Chamberlain is a crook and they have warned the Superintendent. But when they are suddenly attacked by the Superintendent's men and the nameless ronin comes to their defence, it appears they have things the wrong way around and must now go into hiding, with only their mysterious benefactor to help them ...If you have heard of Kurosawa but avoided his movies because of their heavy reputation I urge you to see this terrific action adventure film, as it has all of his visual style but is easily one of his most laid-back and accessible films. Everything about it is great - the story is a wonderfully woven criss-cross of subterfuge and plots within plots, it's shot through with a wry sense of humour (the scenes with the captured guard are particularly funny), all the performances are terrific, the visuals are dynamic and it has an absolutely unmissable shock ending. What I like most of all about it though is the tone - it's a macho man's action picture with a super-tough-guy but it delights in subverting the conventions of the genre at every possible moment. Our hero is a scruffy opportunist, the fellowship of nine samurai are fairly dumb and cowardly (there's a great midway scene where they argue about whether they can trust Mifune), the Lady Mutsuta character (beautifully played by Irie) keeps admonishing the men with too-perceptive remarks, the bravado plan revolves around picking flowers, and our heroes win through more by luck than skill. Muroto, the chief villain (Nakadai), acts with more honour and principle than anyone, despite being on the wrong side, and so his violent death is all the more ignoble and a tremendous juxtaposition with the events which have come before it. Whilst Mifune's character is nameless, he is clearly repeating his role from Yojimbo - he even has the same theme music - and the movie is a sequel of sorts, scripted by Kurosawa and his regular writers Ryuzo Kikushima and Hideo Oguni, but with a lighter tone and a more conventional narrative than its influential predecessor. Mifune even went on to reprise the role a couple of times, once in one of the Zatoichi series and again in an obscure 1970 film entitled Machibuse. A solid, well-written, thinking man's action film, made by a master of the craft.