IPBOYS
Celebrity

Sanjuro, Akira Kurosawa, 1962 – Standoff with Bloody Spurt Scene



SANJURO – streaming now on FilmStruck. www.filmstruck.com

Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Akira Kurosawa’s tightly paced, beautifully composed Sanjuro. In this sly 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. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but equally entertaining, this classic character’s return is a masterpiece in its own right.

Akira Kurosawa, 1963
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Keiju Kobayashi, Tatsuya Nakadai

FilmStruck brings you the best indie, foreign, cult, classic, silent and hard-to-find films and is the exclusive streaming home of The Criterion Collection. Try FilmStruck today for 14 Days FREE and discover a world of new titles to fall in love with: www.filmstruck.com

Follow our Discussions:
…on Facebook: www.facebook.com/filmstruck
…on Instagram: www.instagram.com/filmstruck
…on Twitter: www.twitter.com/filmstruck
…on Tumblr: filmstruck.tumblr.com
…on GIPHY: giphy.com/filmstruck

32 Comments

  2. Nolan Reyes

    It's funny how the actor who played the antagonist here also played the villain in the prequel.

  3. Dantu Arun

    The greatest single fight scene ever. A sword better not drawn, is the greatest sword. philosophy and path meet at the extreme ends… Akira at his pinnacle..

  6. kyo i

    偉大なり　三船敏郎　こんなカッコイイ役者　2度と出んわ。

  9. Ben Knight

    the word "underrated" is tossed around a lot these days. But I do feel Kurosawa counts as an underrated director who doesn't get nearly the amount of appreciation he deserves. Honestly, I know this is a bold statement, but I think this tops the standoff scenes from The Dollar Trilogy.

    Yeah I know The Dollar Trilogy is a spaghetti western series and a completely different genre to this but the standoff scenes all follow the same beats; there's a long pause to build up the suspense and then the attack happens, but while Sergio tended to use incredibly loud orchestras and multiple shots to build up the suspense, Kurosawa took a more subdued approach by fading out the bird song in the background to create silence and then used a single camera angle which I feel is more immersive as it gives the impression that there's nothing hidden; as if you're actually watching someone get killed on screen.

    Put simply, Sergio knows how to utilise sound and Kurosawa knows how to utilise silence.

  10. Johnny Cage

    it's a tragedy

    the movie is a lament about a culture that rewards good people for doing bad things

  11. K K

    This was an amazing & shocking ending I did not expect. I’ve never seen a duel depicted like this it absolutely blew my mind yesterday lmao

  17. Jared Connor

    The irony of a Kurosawa film, especially this one, is that it yearns to promote a more verdant, peaceful, and less warlike world. Most of his films were written as antitheses to the horrors of armed conflict (e.g. here Sanjuro doesn't want to fight Muroto). Unfortunately, the only tangible influence it has is "inspiring" future film makers into making violent films such as this. Sort of a tragedy if one thinks about it.

  31. Tomasz Zydaczewski

    Epicka, ponadczasowa i najlepsza scena pojedynku samurajów w historii kina. Top of the top. Dla mnie numer 1 pojedynek wszech czasów.

Write A Comment