Featurette
Plot summary
Tokyo, 1882. Sanshiro Sugata, a willful youth, wants to master jujutsu, and his search for an instructor brings him to judo master Shogoro Yano at the Shudokan dojo. After Yano defends himself against jujutsu bullies near a river, Sanshiro begs to be his student. He is strong but has no self-control, fighting at a village festival. Yano calls teaching him judo like giving a knife to a madman. Told he does not care whether he lives or dies, Sanshiro jumps into a lotus pond and clings to a stake through a day and a night, and when a lotus blossom opens he asks Yano's forgiveness and becomes a leading student at the dojo. The city intends to hire one dojo to train its police, and the Shudokan's rival is Hansuke Murai's Ryōi Shintō-ryū school.
Cast
- Sugisaku Aoyamaas Tsunetami Iinuma
- Michisaburo Segawaas Hatta
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sanshiro Sugata (1943)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Akira Kurosawa found out about Tsuneo Tomita's new novel through an advertisement and had producer Iwao Mori try to buy the rights; told Toho could not buy them until publication, he stalked bookstores night and day until he found a copy, read it and wrote a screenplay.
- Japanese censors trimmed 17 minutes from Kurosawa's debut film after its initial release; some of that footage was later recovered and added to a DVD release, and the original script with the missing material still exists.
- Kurosawa likened facing the board of censors to being on trial; the film passed on the recommendation of Yasujiro Ozu, who called it an important artistic achievement despite other voices claiming it was too "British-American".
- The source novel was written by Tsuneo Tomita, whose father Tsunejirō Tomita was one of the Kōdōkan Shitennō, judo founder Jigorō Kanō's most loyal pupils, and the book is a roman à clef of the 1880s Kodokan–Totsuka feud.
- Sugata's master Yano was based on judo founder Jigorō Kanō, his rival-turned-ally Murai on Matsugoro Okuda, and the film's antagonist Higaki on jujutsu master Mataemon Tanabe.
- Segata Sanshiro, the advertising character Sega created to promote its Saturn video game console, is a parody of Sanshiro Sugata.
