Sanshiro Sugata

Kurosawa’s action-packed debut feature as a director, adapted from a novel by Tsuneo Tomita, is a martial-arts film set in the late 19th century (the Meiji period), dramatizing the rivalry between the new fighting style of judo and the more established art of jujitsu. Susumu Fujita, in the role that made him a star, is the titular hero, whose initiation into the ways of judo is also an education in the path to self-knowledge and spiritual peace. Many of Kurosawa’s trademark techniques and tropes are already in evidence. Kurosawa expert Donald Richie called Sanshiro Sugata “an extraordinary debut film . . . Still almost as surprising as the day it was released . . . From the very first sequences the director is fully in command in a way that very few directors ever are and the film has as a whole has directness, economy, and a superb athletic beauty.” Sanshiro Sugata was made under conditions of strict wartime censorship. “Since I couldn’t say anything much,” Kurosawa later recalled, “I decided to make a really movie-like movie.” Even so, some criticized the film for being too “American” — a charge that would forever follow this most Western-orientated of great Japanese masters. B&W, 16mm, in Japanese with English subtitles. 80 mins.

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PROGRAM NOTE: We have been advised that the very rare 16mm screening prints of Sanshiro Sugata and Sanshiro Sugata II, imported from Japan, are in substandard condition. Therefore, all tickets to these screenings will be offered at the concession rate of $8 Single Film / $10 Double Bill.

Thank you for your understanding.