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Rating Averages
My Friends |
Not rated. () |
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All Flixster |
(2493) |
1245 |
4009 |
Female |
(341) |
170 |
548 |
Male |
(2152) |
1075 |
3461 |
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| The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai) (75%) |
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| Yojimbo (90%) |
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| A Fistful of Dollars (75%) |
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Plot: A samurai drifter teams up with eight young fighters to fight against evil warlords.
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:September 4, 2008Brilliant. I'll say it again. Kurosawa kicks. so entertaining and clever. such unexpected gore. Mifune is expectedly amazing. It is all just plain choice.
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MCT:July 16, 2008
A very good film with an incredible final scene that surprised me and boosted the whole thing to new heights, but still not a patch on Yojimbo.
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MCT:July 11, 2008Not the best Kurosawa has to offer. Not even 'good' byBut watching the relationship between Kurosawa's camera and Mifune's facial expressionism is a treat.
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MCT:July 9, 2008
I highly suggest watching this after or even before watching Yojimbo! (though I seriously doubt my brother even realizes he already "reviewed" this film)
The title character, originally from the movie "Yojimbo", is mixed up in another samarai predicament, volenteering to help for minimal to zero compensation yet again. (considering that Sanjuro hasn't aged much if even a day and the tales aren't linked in anyway, this story could take place anytime post or prior it's prequel...)
By a stroke of luck, a group of samarai's conversation is over heard by Mifune, who interjects an opinion before saving their hide from 1000 swordsman sneak attack DEATH TRAP!
A few things lead to another and Kurosawa's number one Bobby DeNiro samarai silver-screen superstar suddenly becomes some princess-pursuing mutant Mario brother... Metal Gear style. (silent, stealthful, sudden death)
There is sly tip-toes around a few fortresses, some doulbe agent stuff on the side, and a bit of the P.O.W. business, but you'd really have to be watching the thing yourself to care about it...
SPOILER ALERT: EVERYBODY DIES at the very end, except, of course, the film's protagonists! -
MCT:June 26, 2008
I love old school martial arts movies, this one was so hard to keep up with that I think I am just going to have to watch it again soon!
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MCT:June 13, 2008
i enjoyed this as much as yojimbo. it's a whole lot of fun. mifune is born to play comedy i think. such a ham but you can't take your eyes off him
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MCT:June 2, 2008
tedious japanese B&W film. awesome ending though, like something out of a tarantino movie. i was totally not expecting it.
ps. watched it again recently and i think i was a little harsh first time around... it has definitely grown on me. -
MCT:May 20, 2008Pretty good sequel to the fantastic first film Yojimbo which is a bit hockier in plot, but still has the great Toshiro Mifune leading the way so it is quite enjoyable.
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MCT:May 20, 2008
A sequel to Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' that's as good, if not better. The climactic duel is surprisingly violent and bloody.
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MCT:May 20, 2008
Kurosawa goes for a light hearted tone throughout most of this film, but the film takes a sudden serious tone at the end of film and features one of the most graphic scenes in any of Kurosawa's canon.
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MCT:April 5, 2008Personally this is my favorite Kurosawa movie. The Sanjuro character is so darn funny and so good at tearing people a new one he's hard not to like.
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MCT:February 5, 2008
Slightly better than Sanjuro in terms of production. The ending samurai fight was especially interesting for that time period.
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MCT:January 27, 2008
A good film. I am always delighted to see Mifume and all the other well known faces of Kurosawa's flix. Also I must say that despite a few scenes I deeply enjoyed, I was not totally convinced.
The character and the film in general lacks a form of gravity (tens of men are killed in 90 minutes or so). A tiny bit too commercial for my taste. -
MCT:January 7, 2008
This is going to sound repetitive but yeah, good fun, but not as solid as Yojimbo. Also, Tatsuya Nakadai looks more bad-ass with hair than without. Mifune as always shines in the role of the sarcastic loner, damn, Japanese cinema seriously has no more actors like him or like Tatsuya Nakadai. With some exceptions, these days it's all about teen idols that look like 12 year olds.
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MCT:December 19, 2007
Tashiro Mifune with a semi-sequal to yojimbo, almost as good as yojimbo, this film integrates humor into the role of the wondering ronin. even though yojimbo was slightly better, you can see a progression in kurosawa's skills as a director. this is a great movie.
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MCT:November 7, 2007
Sanjuro is a film where Kurosawa's sense of humour really comes to the fore. Its a wonderful adventure piece with all the usual twists and turns, but more than anything its brilliantly amusing, mainly down to Mifune's performance as the eponnymous charchter and the brilliant script by Kurosawa. Ranks as one of his best.
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MCT:September 28, 2007
While it is indeed a sequel to Yojimbo, Sanjuro feels more like another story about the character of Sanjuro than a sequel; as if the ronin wandered all his life and helped those in need and this is simply another of his "adventures." Consequently, there's not an awful lot to say, I must admit, though I'll see what I can do.
As I say that, don't get me wrong. This is a great film, perhaps even more tight than its predecessor; we have instead of two warring gangs, the issue of corruption within a clan government. The truly corrupt have duped some well-meaning young men into believing that their chamberlain (as Criterion translates it, I wasn't paying enough attention to single out the Japanese term)--uncle to one of them, no less--is the actual corrupt official. Sanjuro stumbles confidently in when they've reached this erroneous conclusion and logically points them to the truth of the matter. From then on it is a battle to regain the chamberlain himself, and for Sanjuro to teach something to these hot-headed, impulsive young fools. Repeatedly they ignore and contradict what he asks or tells them, usually to disastrous effect.
However, this time we have Sanjuro himself learning a little something from the wife of the chamberlain when they find her; she tells him that he glistens like an unsheathed sword, and he, for one of the few times in both films, does not seem to be on top of things. "Glisten? Unsheathed sword?"--he questions both of her statements, and she explains that the best sword is sheathed, and constantly encourages him not to kill (which we saw he had few qualms about in the prior film). She's not entirely successful, but we see the idea begin to take root in Sanjuro's approach to life and problems.
Returning as Sanjuro is--and who would doubt it?--Toshiro Mifune, once again brilliantly swaggering and self-confident as the wily ronin, constantly ahead of the game with everyone, immensely skilled as a swordsman and filled with those same amusingly bored affectations of rolling shoulders, chest-scratching and chin-rubbing. He faces off this time against the wit of...well, what do you know? Tatsuya Nakadai again, this time playing swordsman Muroto. Muroto is by no means a similar character to Unosuke in Yojimbo, this time a hollow-eyed and cold-blooded killer, with none of the energy or "charm" of his previous character. He's a little less rounded, but the shorter running time allows for that, and this is not about characters overall anyway, but about an adventure, an amusing story and about Sanjuro, if anyone. Also re-appearing is Takashi Shimura, again in a sadly small role, again as a rather nervous and bumbling politician. Once again we see that, while they may make plans, it seems the heads of these groups inevitably fall behind their clever musclemen (Nakadai in both cases) as real threats, turning to them in any situation that contains some element of danger. Perhaps this is related to Kurosawa's socialist beliefs...?
Some shots were worth noting on their own through the film; very early we see an extreme closeup on Mifune as he shifts from bored, justifiably arrogant truth-teller to sharp-minded samurai, and it brings to mind the work of Sergio Leoné, which is--as I hope my readers realize by now--thoroughly appropriate, since these two films were the eventual basis for A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. It wasn't the long study of a face, but it held that same level of detail and sharpness, and the contrast with the generally wider shots that made up the rest of the film. The landscape shots were also fantastic, the stream that bore camellia flowers downstream was absolutely beautiful, as were the shots of those blossoms travelling cheerfully down said stream.
And one other shot worth mentioning--the final confrontation between Sanjuro and Muroto. Hooowee. That was quite a scene. You can tell that even the wildlife is captivated by this standoff--also recalling Leoné and his own extended faceoffs--as even the birds stop chirping to watch these two professional killers dare each other to draw.
A worthy follow up, and worth noting for being of the more purely entertaining of Kurosawa's films. -
MCT:August 16, 2007
The sequel to Yojimbo is superior in wit, satire, action and humour. One of the greatest samurai movies. (Later remade into For a Few Dollars More...)
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MCT:June 24, 2007
in certain ways, i enjoyed this more than YOJIMBO. obviously not the classic film, but the lighter tone of this one made it more enjoyable for me.
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MCT:June 22, 2007
This the shit man....LOL...best old samurai movie ever along with yojimbo!!!
sick dude man!!!!good actor too!!
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MCT:June 9, 2007
the companion piece to yojimbo, i like more. beautiful movie and toshiro's performance is yet again, amazing.
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MCT:May 8, 2007
Not as much fun as Yojimbo, this sequel still beats in the skulls of almost every other smurai movie. Of course, Kurosawa presents a beautifully photographed adventure.
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MCT:April 3, 2007
A great little film generally overshadowed by its "companion" Yojimbo....This however is my favorite of Kurosawa's two ronin films. With Mufune, as ever, on top form... It's more comical than Yojimbo, yet it loses none of it's predecessors intensity.....and the final Mifune/Nakadai showdown ........man, that's got to hurt!
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