Just the Ticket #234: Sanjuro

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

I had planned to watch and review this movie in August as a continuation of a theme from previous years (Yojimbo in 2025 and its American adaptation Last Man Standing in 2024), but chose to push into September in favor of finishing out the Kiryu Saga (Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.) instead.

Before we get to Sanjuro, though, I have great news: as you are reading this, I have made my last payment toward resolving my gambling debts (which I confessed to in Isekai "Quartet" #2 and touched on the backlash and burnout of in my MCU Back From Burnout post). I also have an employee who's worth a damn now, and I recently stumbled upon a poem from my childhood that I wrote and have been seeking out for many years that will make its way into the calendar this month.

It's not just bad things that come in threes, Ticketholders!

Retooled into a Yojimbo sequel from a planned screenplay adaptation of Hibi Heian (translation: "Peaceful Days") by Shūgorō Yamamoto, Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro (written as the titular rōnin's full pseudonym in kanji: Tsubaki Sanjuro) features the returning Toshiro Mifune as "Sanjuro" (the film does the same, Usual Suspects visual gag we saw in Yojimbo when he gives his name, but more overtly here) and supporting appearances by familiar Shōwa Godzilla and Kurosawa actors like Yoshio Tsuchiya (Invasion Of Astro-Monster and Destroy All Monsters), Akihiko Hirata (Dr. Serizawa himself, from Gojira), and in the villain role as Kurofuji, Takashi Shimura (Gojira, Raids Again, and Seven Samurai). Kurosawa also co-wrote and edited the film, and Masaru Sato (who also composed for Godzilla Raids Again, Ebirah, Horror Of the Deep, Son Of Godzilla, and Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla) returns from Yojimbo to provide a fun, intense score to the proceedings.

It's a fairly simple game of wits and warfare that starts with a bang when nine young samurai fail to reach a decision regarding which of their lords is corrupt (the horse-faced chamberlain, played by Stray Dog's Yūnosuke Itō, or the old superintendent, played by 47 Rōnin's Masao Shimizu). Their conversation is overheard by Sanjuro, who, true to his character in the previous film, is a crude but strategic badass motivated by food, money, and sake (but also a frustrated species of pity at how stupidly impulsive the nine are, and maybe a bit of a restless bloodlust from his samurai days). So he employs his particular set of skills and some lucky applications of basic psychology to dismantle the superintendent's forces (a group so massive it looks like Kurosawa had twenty guys march in and out of frame on a loop), rescue the chamberlain's wife (Takako Irie, The Water Magician) and daughter (Reiko Dan, Red Beard), and expose the true source of corruption in the town, all the while babysitting the nine impulsive, combative lemmings who entrusted themselves to him.

It all culminates in a brief, bloody confrontation with Shimura's bug-eyed villain, prefaced with a staredown so still, tense, and silent I thought I had hit pause by accident, and followed by Sanjuro vanishing like a camellia blossom floating downstream.

Mifune steals the film, as he has in all three movies I've seen him in, as does Shimura when his role becomes more significant. Even a few of the supporting characters, like the chamberlain's wife and the captured bodyguard (Keiju Kobayashi, Return Of Godzilla), get their moments to shine. The action is sudden, brutal, quick, and impressive, with the perfect amount of gore for the time of release (and that punchy soundtrack), such that Mifune's swordsmanship would be used demonstrably in a popular kendo manual of the late 80s. The sets are impressive for their time, as well.

But the majority of the film between fights is just people sitting in bamboo rooms and talking, and when only four (generously) of the fifteen speaking characters make an impression, it drags down the pacing of what is otherwise a clever, engaging, sometimes funny, but popularity-mandated Kurosawa effort.

I previously praised Yojimbo for its methodical pace helping to establish atmosphere and character, while faulting it for its repetitive plot mechanics, lazy third act, and uncomfortably bleak and cynical outlook. Though entertaining, Sanjuro feels almost like a well-intended course-correction taken too far. The action and comedy are the forefront, the slower moments are filled with exposition and conflict-laden dialogue rather than visual storytelling (with the exception of that final showdown, but the characters just explain the juxtaposition of Sanjuro and Kurofuji and the thematic importance of their conflict to us afterward anyway), the villain has ulterior motives that are explained but go unexplored, and Sanjuro never feels like he's on the back foot at any point, even when his nine albatrosses repeatedly screw everything up for him or when he gets captured near the end.

So, while I enjoyed myself more with Sanjuro than I did with Yojimbo, I can't say I thought any better of it.

C

Next week, I'm chilling out and just doing a review of a Zenescope One-Shot, but will return the following week with a bonus surprise, another Unleashed miniseries, and the finale of the Millennium Era of Goj-Year-ra. So Stay Tuned for that, and as always, please continue to support me and what I do by Becoming A Ticketholder (you haven't yet), leaving a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, helping out my ad revenue as you read because corruption abounds and samurai aren't cheap, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

14

Ticketrōnin,
My Work Here Is Done.