Regardless of where you stand, it is true that too many franchises and sequels are being initiated of late, something which should have you thinking. Let’s not get fretted as this is not an exclusively American issue and neither is it a recent one. After completing his second movie. The Most Beautiful, an Akira Kurosawa propaganda film, was forced to add to his first making. This in turn led to the blockade of his original movie, Sanshiro Sugata which not only was accepted but rather embraced by the Japanese viewers. This is where his inclination to make the symbol of the rising sun pop out began, especially when he realized that Japan was starting to lose in the Western-themed war.
In the 1880s, Sanshiro Sugata was a strong drama based on the promising young dude, the eponymous Sanshiro (Susumu Fujita) who decided to become a judo master. The sequel to this movie Sanshiro Sugata Part II will throw in several other interesting characters to the plot too. Embracing the angle of capitalism, Sanshirō despises the idea of establishing a commercial fighting platform, where an American boxer is paid to beat up martial arts performers from Japan. To add to Caption Higaki’s trauma of being stomped by Sanshirō in the last battle, his two brothers who are zealous for revenge are now making their way towards Sanshirō And indeed, he is right to be careful.
In reality, this is a film divided into two parts, albeit the two parts progress together. The first segment is unadulterated war-time propaganda at its best. The courageous and principled Sanshiro stoically refuses to sink to the disreputable depths of the boxing match, despite the efforts of its promoter to coax him into the match. He ends up entering the ring and defeating the American boxer when he, out of sheer frustration, can no longer endure the continuous insult against Japanese martial arts. The message is clear: America is barbaric and inadequate, but Japan is dignified and will assuredly triumph. The irony here is that not many people received this message: there were hardly any theaters that stood in Japan during the release of the movie in May 1945. More than three months later, Japan surrendered unconditionally.
In all fairness, much entertainment cannot be established from propaganda since its key objective is not entertainment. Certainly, the boxing plotline is the least interesting part of the film, although it must be said that the other half of the film leaves a lot to be desired.
The last time viewers saw Higaki, he was an arrogant European-dressed fighter who took on Sanshiro and lost leading him to sliding down the hill while suffering from severe injuries. From the look of things, I along with the audience assumed he was deceased too. The sequel argues otherwise. They claim Higaki was simply defeated, but the true nature of the defeat has tarnished his psychological and physical health. Now his Manic brothers, Genzaburo and Tesshin, are demanding Sanshiro to fight claiming it is for the sake of avenging their brother’s loss. This is where the sequel turns silly, the reincarnation of the age-old storytelling trope -In order to defeat a powerful alter ego of the hero, the demon has to be defeated first. I doubt there would have been such a super-talented fourth brother had Akira not refused to make a part 3.
The climatic fight was the peak of the first movie, and the climatic duel here is also the highlight of the second. This scene swaps the breezy grassy hill of the original for a snow-capped mountainside, and Kurosawa extracts a lot of tension out of the scene while Tesshin and Sanshiro are moving ever closer to the edge of the hill as the snow is falling.
This film has roved some distinct trends in the direction of Kurosawa’s movies. First, it is evident that many of the best moments of character in Kurosawa’s films are expressed without dialogue. There’s also a pause as a character enters a room, like the scene where Sanshiro is smiling at his lover when he leaves to fight his duel. To add on, Kurosawa certainly captures action very well: the mountainside duel is, at this point in his career, probably the best-captured scene he’s done. And even decades after the fact, it remains surprisingly effective. With this film, he also begins to incorporate elements of traditional Japanese theater: the silent, mentally afflicted Genzaburo Higaki, dressed with a tattered black wig, is a noh representation of insanity.
As it is, Sanshiro Sugata Part II is not a good film, not least because of the rather mundane propaganda scenes, because it is clear Kurosawa did not care much for it. Sugata Kurosawa, 55, lacks enthusiasm. easily tormented investment in the region. easy ‘no’ for each wounded Kurosawa. While let’s be honest, there is always some gooey joy in watching a beloved movie character reviving, but there is simply not enough interesting story to tell. Siro Kurosawa made one more sequel in his entire professional career (Sanjuro). From this point forward, he was transparent and did not hide the fact that he focused on creating original stories.
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