Kurosawa’s witty samurai classics are back, in 4K Ultra HD. The master of cinema greeted the 1960s with American pulp cynicism in Japanese period costume, creating what was essentially a Japanese western. Toshirô Mifune is a riot as an amoral sword for hire in Yojimbo, promoting a turf war for fun and profit. In the sequel Sanjuro he shows a touch more moral fiber. Never one to be outshone, Kurosawa gives the movies a sense of humor as well as occasional shocks — nobody forgets the second film’s surprise conclusion.

Yojimbo + Sanjuro 4K
Two Samurai Films by Akira Kurosawa
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 52 & 53
1961-1962 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date January 7, 2025 / available through The Criterion Collection/ 79.95
Starring: Toshirô Mifune.
Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa, Fukuzo Koizumi, Takao Saitô
Production Designer: Yoshirô Muraki
Film Editor: Akira Kurosawa
Original Music: Masaru Satô
Written by Ryûzô Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Tomoyuki Tanaka
Produced by Ryûzô Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Some of the best early Criterion laserdiscs and DVDs were Akira Kurosawa special editions … not only did we get quality full-length presentations of  Seven Samurai (#2) and  Rashômon (#138), we were regularly treated to terrific encodings of less-seen masterpieces like  High and Low (#24),  The Hidden Fortress (#116), and  Red Beard (#159). It seemed to take forever for remastered Blu-ray editions to surface, and some top titles are still only available in DVD.

Perhaps Toho is becoming more conducive to improved special editions, what with the recent 4K remasters of Seven Samurai and  Godzilla. Now arrives a pair of classics with crossover appeal to action fans. Kurosawa’s international hits Yojimbo and Sanjuro were an obvious influence on action cinema everywhere. Partly inspired by Hollywood genres, they spurred a whole new genre revolution in Italian westerns.

Yojimbo
Criterion 52
1961 / 110 min.
Starring Toshirô Mifune, Eijiro Tono, Kamatari Fujiwara, Takashi Shimura, Seizaburo Kawazu, Isuzu Yamada, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Kyu Sazanka, Tatsuya Nakadai, Daisuke Kato
Cinematography Kazuo Miyagawa
Art Direction Yoshiro Muraki
Film Editor Akira Kurosawa
Original Music Masaru Satô
Written by Ryûzô Kikushima
Produced by Ryûzô Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, Tomoyuki Tanaka
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Actions fans know Yojimbo as the film that provided the template for Sergio Leone’s first Italian western  Fistful of Dollars. But the two movies are not merely similar. Leone remade Yojimbo scene-by-scene, joke by joke and practically shot by shot.  →  Not to denigrate Sergio Leone’s talent, but what other celebrated filmmaker broke through with such a blatant exercise in plagiarism. Actually, Kurosawa’s film has itself been noted as a loose transposition of the American novel Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett. So where the ‘borrowing’ began is a subject for debate.

Japanese viewers of 1961 must have known that ‘they weren’t in Kansas any more,’ as soon as they heard Masaru Satô’s jazzy music. Then, a dog trots through a scene carrying a severed hand, with no explanation offered. The first action of the mysterious ronin Sanjûrô Kuwabatake (Toshirô Mifune) is to scratch his head … do ronin commonly have trouble with fleas and lice?

Sanjûrô drifts into a town split into two warring clans, each of which has taken on a retinue of hired killers to harass the other. The stranger is first treated like just another sword for hire. He solicits offers from both sides, but has no intention of becoming just another bodyguard on a payroll.

Remaining an independent contractor, Sanjûrô hires himself out to one warring faction, causes some mayhem, and then switches sides. Pretty soon he has both sides annihilating one another while he sits in the middle getting rich. But he isn’t totally bad: Along the way he befriends a neutral barman, and helps an innocent couple escape the clutches of one of the evil families. It is indeed an escapist fantasy with a seemingly bulletproof hero. Like James Bond, we know Yojimbo won’t get killed.

Yojimbo was monster hit in Japan, but the experts say that it initally drew flak from homegrown critics. Most previous samurai tales had been traditional costume epics. Kurosawa envisioned his film as a samurai-western hybrid even more American in tone than his earlier Seven Samurai. Ironic humor and bloody conflict are everything, with historical context and moral examination mostly absent. It’s something new. Our ragged samurai hero walks down the road to music that sounds like swing jazz. Ozu who?

Just as in Leone’s Italian remake, Toshirô Mifune’s aloof and calculating Sanjûrô isn’t a clown. The character always has one more trick up his sleeve. Most of his murderous shenanigans win our approval and make us laugh as well.

Kurosawa’s modernist strategy is more than a play on genre expectations. Americans once looked to Westerns to define the national character, to exemplify heroic qualities. Yojimbo sets a different template for the Japanese male. Obedient employees following traditional bosses won’t be the ones to cross the finish line first. Celebrated instead is the cool-headed realist who knows his capabilities and doesn’t let conventional thinking get in the way.

Paced more like a comedy than a period picture, this swordplay free-for-all invented a new style of samurai super-hero. The entire enterprise celebrates mercenary cynicism, as Sanjuro precipitates bloody battles between two warring super-powers, cleverly taking money from each.

The show actually features another Japanese superstar in a secondary role. The formidable Tatsuya Nakadai was the leading player in Masaki Kobayashi’s world-class epic  The Human Condition, the third part of which had premiered just a few months before. Nakadai plays Unosuke, Sanjûrô’s only real opponent. Somewhat of an anachronism, Unosuke carries an American pistol in the folds of his clothing and adorns himself with a plaid scarf. The character has been described as a proto-Yakuza.

Kurosawa’s storytelling style plays clever tricks with the pacing. The picture slows down for long stretches, only to burst into fast action at a moment’s notice, and then subside once more. The relaxed segments get shorter until the expected violent climax. Even as we marvel at the lightning-fast swordplay, we never take Yojimbo all that seriously. In one outrageous sequence with the warriors lined up for combat, one giant fighter (Tsumagorô Rashômon) carries an oversized mallet, suitable for Yosemite Sam. We’re told that such a weapon was indeed real, but it’s hilarious just the same.

The disc’s extras claim that Yojimbo introduced customized Whoosh and Slash sound effects for whirling samurai blades. The audio tracks of Sanjûrô’s killing sprees sound like music from an angel’s flaming sword.

As it turned out, the cinematic ‘theft’ by Sergio Leone to make A Fistful of Dollars ended up doing Akira Kurosawa some good. Christopher Frayling reported that Toho did immediately notice the similarities in the Italian movie, and legal ‘inquiries’ followed. A few negotiations later, Kurosawa was made a profit participant. The international success of Fistful made it one of the Japanese director’s biggest moneymakers, helping him to finance independent productions like  Red Beard.

Sanjuro
Criterion 53
1962 / 96 min. / Tsubaki Sanjûrô
Starring Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi, Yuzo Kayama, Reiko Dan, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura
Cinematography Fukuzo Koizumi, Takao Saitô
Production Design Yoshirô Muraki
Film Editor Akira Kurosawa
Original Music Masaru Satô
Written by Ryûzô Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni from a novel by Shugoro Yamamoto
Produced by Ryûzô Kikushima
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

The funny, exciting Sanjuro is a very different and amusing samurai adventure, with a deeper personality for Toshirô Mifune’s Sanjûrô. According to Criterion’s experts, the character was shoehorned into a story originally about a meek fellow who isn’t a polished swordsman, yet prevails just the same. The adaptation is excellent, as Mifune’s itchy warrior shepherds a group of foolish but well-intentioned samurai and relies on a series of clever strategies to save the day.

Change is necessary when concocting a continuation of a story as self-contained as Yojimbo, which wraps up so neatly that a ‘more of the same’ sequel would likely disappoint.  ^*  The new and improved samurai hero is no longer such a cynical loner. He now displays some ethical principles — he commits to one side of a dispute and only pretends to join the other.

Like a ronin Mary Poppins, Sanjûrô comes from nowhere to aid nine good but inexperienced samurai. The group has a bad habit of flying off the handle at the slightest provocation. They have also read their situation all wrong, having decided that their ugly chamberlain is a villain and that a friendly superintendent is an ally. Our hero’s first task is to teach his well-meaning seven dwarfs nine samurai to look beyond the obvious, to not judge people and situations by appearances alone.

In other words, our loner hero is now a kindergarten teacher. He shows his brood of acolytes how to navigate complicated samurai traps of loyalty and honor … without letting them know any more than they need to know about what’s really happening.

The corrupt superintendent is actually plotting to overthrow the clan with the tactical aid of his head enforcer, a fine swordsman named Hanbei Muroto (Tatsuya Nakadai again). As the two swordsmen share a past history, Sanjûrô can guess that Muroto intends to doublecross his own superiors. When Muroto extends a peace feeler for help with this insurrection, Sanjûrô breaks the samurai code of honor by acting as a double agent. It’s the only way he can oppose such a treacherous foe.

That doesn’t begin to explain the twists that ensue. The sequel is more conventional and has fewer action battles than Yojimbo yet is just as funny. Sanjûrô employs stealth and sharp games-playing to sidestep one catastrophe after another, as when the opposite side takes hostages. He obtains reliable information while keeping the enemy in the dark, maintaining an advantage even when things look hopeless. His strategy eventually boils down to some crucial bluffs and a novel form of communication: when Sanjûrô is away from his 9 ‘troops,’ he signals them by throwing bunches of Camelia blossoms into a stream.

While Sanjûrô makes both the bad guys and his own pupils look like fools, we get to enjoy a number of amusing characterizations. Freed hostage Chidori (Reiko Dan) talks about the joy of lying with her boyfriend in fresh hay. Her mother (Takako Irie) critiques Sanjûrô’s love life with the suggestion that he should keep his sword sheathed more often. Sanjûrô considers that advice to be wise, even though he doubts he can act on it. When a housemaid volunteers to serve saké the enemy as a spy, Sanjûrô tells his cohorts that she’s more of a samurai than any of them. He also complains about the way the nine follow him around: “You guys move like a centipede.”

In what amounts to a samurai running gag, one of the chamberlain’s loyal servants (Keiju Kobayashi) serves as Sanjûrô’s main spy. But he stays hidden in a closet throughout most of the picture, popping out now and then to offer pertinent bits of information he’s overheard. According to the disc extras, before Kurosawa reworked the original story for Mifune, this character was the hero!

Sanjûrô does its fair share of swordplay slicing and dicing but there’s not nearly as much mayhem as in Yojimbo. To compensate, Kurosawa ends with another novel effect for the samurai film — a single fatal sword stroke that results in an outrageously exaggerated fountain of blood. This ultra-cool bit of butchery surely made Sanjuro the hottest thing in Tokyo screens. The samurai film would soon realign itself around stylish flourishes of ritualistic, gory bloodletting. With the addition of brilliant color, those fountains of blood would become all the more startling.

We hate to jump in on a ‘gore detail’ as a major attraction … but it certainly is. Even at film school, that last shot was a surprise that lifted us out of our seats. It’s one very long uncut take, with impeccable timing.

The Criterion Collection’s 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray of Yojimbo + Sanjuro 4K is a new 4K digital remaster and an impressive improvement over Criterion’s Blu-ray editions from 2010. Those releases could be purchased separately or in a set; this time around the combo 4K-Blu set appears to be the only package offered.

We loved these pictures on laserdisc and DVD, but have to admit that some of the masters provided by Toho were low in contrast or lacking in detail. Both of these titles now look great, exceedingly sharp and with extremely fine granularity. We can never quite make up our minds about the anamorphic cinematography of some Japanese films. Even when given names like ‘TohoScope’ the lenses seem to vary between films. Kazuo Miyagawa’s images tend toward long focal lengths, yet the sharpness, field flatness and depth of focus seem an improvement on both CinemaScope and Panavision from 1961. These are very good-looking movies.

The presentations come with a second soundtrack in addition to the original monaural. Original English-language title cards for each read ‘Perspecta Stereo’; the disc notes say that Toho has remastered the original Perspecta tracks, an encoding that (weak explanation here) split a monaural track for a ‘stereo effect.’ It’s beyond me, but the discussion by Robert Fine at the Widescreen Museum may make things clearer for the better-informed among us.

Most of Criterion’s extras are the same selection from 2006. Author Stephen Prince provides thorough and entertaining full-length commentaries. The main attraction for both titles is still a pair of Toho Masterworks TV shows: Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create. Former collaborators of the director offer a run-down on his personality as well as anecdotes about the filming. Kurosawa used wind machines to throw up dust but insisted that his actors not shut their eyes. He auditioned the odd-matched music by first placing it in the film’s trailer.

Witnesses describe Toshirô Mifune as a perfectionist and an agile action performer who really could slash a sword around with accuracy. We learn of Kurosawa’s interest in shooting Yokimbo with telephoto zoom lenses, a choice that required a focus puller with magic fingers. The docu also offers a story of how Kurosawa came up with the arresting image of a dog carrying a severed hand.

Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiji Kobayashi and a host of crew members recall the filming of Sanjuro. Hundreds of fake Camellias were handmade, attached to trees and carefully arranged by the director. Everyone chips in to comment on the extraordinary final scene, which they claim was a technical mistake. The valve for the fake blood didn’t function properly, resulting in a geyser that almost knocked Nakadai off his feet and drenched the script lady. It went completely against what was planned, but Kurosawa liked it and kept it in.

The video extras are on the Blu-ray discs only. Each has a trailer, a teaser and a still gallery. Insert booklets have essays by Alexander Sesonske and Michael Sragow and notes from Kurosawa.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Yojimbo + Sanjuro 4K
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray rates:
Movies: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent Monaural + Perspecta Stereo tracks
Supplements:
Audio commentaries by Stephen Prince
Making-of documentaries for both pictures, from the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create.
Teasers and trailers
Stills galleries of behind-the-scenes photos
Insert pamphliets with essays by Alexander Sesonske and Michael Sragow, plus notes from Kurosawa and his collaborators.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: February 11, 2025
(7276kuro)

^*  Our go-to example for a miserable sequel is  James Coburn’s Sci-fi super spy Derek Flint. The first  Our Man Flint may not be high art, but it’s a perfectly structured fable with a ‘closed statement’ finale. The mandate to grind out a sequel produced  In Like Flint, a groaner with more talk than action, that grounded the escapist Flint fantasy in pointless slapstick. The original’s claim to ‘knowing’ cleverness was lost … even Jerry Goldsmith’s music can’t keep James Coburn from being terminally uncool.

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