No anniversary, no special reason. I just really, really like Sanjuro. I will admit that Yojimbo is objectively the better of the duology, but... you know how it is.
From my own weird nerd perspective, I think it's really exciting that Hirata was in this movie. It's the only Kurosawa film he was ever in (if we don't count Saga of the Vagabonds, which Kurosawa only co-wrote the script for). It's so cool that he's there in the background of all the gifs you've ever seen of that blood-fountain scene - arguably one of the most iconic moments in all of jidaigeki history.
The story behind how the blood-spray effect was achieved accidentally is well-trodden territory at this point, but it deserves to be. The scene was shot in one take, and the compressor that was filled with fake blood intended to gush out when Mifune cut Nakadai down malfunctioned, emptying its contents with immense pressure (Nakadai recounts that it almost knocked him off his feet). As the sheer force of the blood spray was not in the script, the reactions of the nine samurai witnessing it would have been genuine. Kurosawa also mentions that a crowd of locals from Gotemba, where the scene was shot, had gathered to watch the filming, and had the living daylights scared out of them by the unexpected torrent of blood. The cut was kept despite the "mistake".
Hirata plays the least goofy of the nine naïve samurai who Sanjuro ends up entangled with. The samurai tend to act as a hivemind for much of the film, and as such no one of them is ever really focused on more than the others. Sanjuro is a great example of that wonderful quality a lot of Kurosawa's films have where the fact of who holds "protagonist" status is fluid and often indeterminate. That being said, shoutout to BFI [British Film Institute] for getting Hirata on the cover of their DVD release of Sanjuro not just once but twice:
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| i got this photo off a website that sells bibles in different languages. you heard it here folks, sanjuro is technically a bible |
Like most if not all of Kurosawa's films, production was fraught due to the high demands Kurosawa made of his actors. For Sanjuro, all the actors were required to be in full costume for rehearsals, which went on for a month. (Welcome to Chonmage Hell.) The actors playing the nine samurai were also made to carry real swords on set, even if the script never called for their character to draw their sword. Yoshio Tsuchiya would later recall how he and Kunie Tanaka were left tied up for an extended period of time during shooting - and I do mean tied up with ropes, not tied up as in busy - while the lighting was adjusted. Not everybody seems to have had the same experience with Kurosawa, though; Akira Kubo said that he found him "warm and friendly". I don't know if Hirata ever spoke about his experience while filming and rehearsing for this movie, but for what it's worth (which is probably nothing, schedule conflicts existed then as now), he didn't work with Kurosawa ever again after this.
I won't focus too much on the production history, since information about that is readily available. Instead, I want to highlight some merch you might not have known existed (including some from Yojimbo), as well as the international release of the film.
Like, for example, did you know you can get a figure of Daisuke Katō to give the rest of your figures the stink eye?
The full set, produced by Kaiyodo, includes figures from both Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Individually, they're surprisingly cheap on eBay.
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| concept: SHFiguarts big dude with the hammer from yojimbo |
Or get you a set of soft vinyl minifigs of Sanjuro, Ogami (and baby) from Lone Wolf and Cub, and Zatoichi.
Oh I almost forgot. I get to show you all the caricature. I was doing some digging on Ogikubo Toho (a website that, among other things, tracks down the filming locations of many Toho films) and found that they have a resident caricature artist. I'm linking it directly instead of embedding as I don't have permission from the artist.
I kind of love it honestly.
There was also a manga adaptation drawn by Goseki Kojima, the same artist who did the Lone Wolf and Cub series. I haven't seen much of the inside, but I like the art style a lot. As far as I know this is the only manga adaptation, but there's a little fanart on pixiv. (This may be the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.)
Now let's move onto the international releases. This movie truly made it around the world, having its first premiere outside of Japan at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland in July of 1962, and eventually screening in such places as Lebanon, Tibet, Turkey, Greece, Peru, and Finland, just to name a few. Its U.S. premiere came the year after its release. Here's some distribution memorabilia from, in order, Mexico, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland:
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| toširo mifune |
The film would be remade in 2007, re-using the original screenplay. Hirata's role was filled by Deka Blue from Dekaranger (Tsuyoshi Hayashi) of all people. I can't speak to the overall quality of the remake as I have yet to see it.
While Yojimbo is - and deserves to be - the more celebrated of the two, I still have a soft spot for Sanjuro. The former is much more dynamic and establishes the Sanjuro character, the latter is a film wholly centered on planning and strategy, with a character study of Sanjuro playing out so subtly that it's often hard to notice. I'm including some further reading at the bottom here if you want to learn more about this film. If you have the Criterion DVD (which you should - if you don't, I'd bet you can get it from your local library), it includes an episode of Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful To Create that covers the production of this film through interviews with actors and crew members. I would highly recommend watching this.
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Further reading:
Tsuchiya, Yoshio. (1999) Kurosawa-san! Wonderful Days With Akira Kurosawa. Shinchosha. [Get it on amazon.jp]
Richie, Donald. (1965) 4th ed. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. Los Angeles University Press. pp. 156-163.
Sim, Gerald. Cinematic Expressions of Rakugo in Akira Kurosawa's Comedies Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Asian Cinema, vol. 2, 2011, pp. 253-268. [coughs]
Vili. (2019) "Film Club: Sanjuro (Kurosawa, 1962)" Akira Kurosawa info. https://akirakurosawa.info/2019/12/01/film-club-sanjuro-kurosawa-1962/ Retrieved May 28th, 2024
Sragow, Michael. (2010) "Sanjuro: Return of the Ronin" Criterion. https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/61-sanjuro-return-of-the-ronin Retrieved May 28th, 2024
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