#Tsubaki Sanjūrō 1962

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BEHIND-THE-SCENES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF JAPANESE CINEMA -- LUNCH-TIME ON THE SET.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on classic Japanese actors Toshiro Mifune (who played the title actor) and Yuzo Kayama (samurai youth Iori Izaka), enjoying their meal on the set of "Sanjuro" (1962), co-written & directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Source: https://x.com/mutokuten/status/1428768677323739147.

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“You're like a drawn sword.”

椿三十郎 (Tsubaki Sanjūrō - Sanjuro), 1962.

Dir. Akira Kurosawa | Writ. Ryūzō Kikushima, Hideo Oguni & Akira Kurosawa | DOP Fukuzo Koizumi & Takao Saito

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椿三十郎 (Tsubaki Sanjūrō) - 黒澤 明 (Kurosawa Akira) - 1962

[clemsfilmdiary]

Sanjuro / Tsubaki Sanjūrō (1962, Akira Kurosawa)

椿三十郎　（黒沢明）

9/1/19

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Tsubaki Sanjūrō ‘椿三十郎 ‘ (1962)

[wittypenguin]

Sanjuro (1962)

Now, #LabourDayFilmFest continues with 1962’s Sanjuro (or 椿三十郎 or Tsubaki Sanjūrō), directed by legendary cinematic artist Akira Kurosawa (Kyūjitai: 黒澤明, Shinjitai: 黒沢明, or Kurosawa Akira).

Once more we meet the wandering rōnin and master swordsman who now calls himself “Tsubaki Sanjūrō” (or 椿三十郎, literally “thirty-years-old camellia” [played by Toshiro Mifune (or 三船敏郎 or Mifune Toshirō)]). He overhears some young men discussing a political crisis involving the Uncle of one of them.

Here’s what the Wikipedia says:

Nine young samurai believe that the lord chamberlain, Mutsuta, is corrupt after he tore up their petition against fraud at court. One of them tells the superintendent of this and he agrees to intervene. As the nine meet secretly at a shrine to discuss this, a rōnin overhears and cautions them against trusting the superintendent. While at first they do not believe him, he saves them from an ambush. But as their rescuer is about to leave, he realises that Mutsuta and his family must now be in danger and decides to stay and help.

This is another splendid example of acting by Mifune-san. He struts about with a grace-less swagger that simultaneously says he is in charge of everything and yet doesn’t care about anything very much. It’s seemingly impossible to pull off, given the delicate balancing act of the thing — too much confidence can seem like arrogance, and too much ambivalence about outcomes can either feel like a lack of compassion or lead to the viewer not caring about what happens — but he does it perfectly.

The thing that this film has is a broader range of characters, plus a higher class of society. In Yojimbo, we have hard-scrabble farmers and people of the earth. Here we have rulers and bureaucrats; politically savvy folk. In the earlier film, there are people with broken noses, tattoos — there’s a dang giant! — they brag about the crimes they’ve committed, they’ve been in jail; they use these things to impress fear in those who oppose them. With Sanjuro, we have people who listen to you and nod, all the while cooking up a way to manoeuvre you out of office by discrediting you; they lie to win the public over to their side, should things get ugly. This story is more subtle, more intricate, but the danger is just as real: people can and do get killed.

The cinematography is more subtle as well: gone are the bold compositions of the village with the sky above, here we are inside elegant rooms with tatami mats and art on the walls, or designs painted on the delicate paper screens. The samurai vagabond sticks out like a sore thumb here, his blunt ways do not fit with the cultured polite manners of this story. He is a man out of place, but the man they need to solve their problem.

Excellent stuff. I wish I could create a star that was half-filled in, as it really rates 4½ out of five.

★★★★☆

[aikidookulu]

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Sanjuro (椿三十郎 Tsubaki Sanjūrō) , 1962 yılı yapımı siyah-beyaz bir Japon sinema filmidir. Filmin yönetmeni, Japon yönetmen Akira Kurosava'dır. Filmin başrol oyunculuğunu ise Toshirō Mifune yapmıştır. www.aikizendojo.com #aikizendojo (Aikido Aikizen Dojo) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8d9fgLHB0g/?igshid=1o45c91admffp

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the next scene...

椿三十郎 (Tsubaki Sanjūrō) - 黒澤 明 (Kurosawa Akira) - 1962 

[swankpalanquin]

椿三十郎 (Tsubaki Sanjūrō) - 黒澤 明 (Kurosawa Akira) - 1962

[swankpalanquin]

椿三十郎 (Tsubaki Sanjūrō) - 黒澤 明 (Kurosawa Akira) - 1962