Sanshiro Sugata

A pleasant viewing experience, and a kind of superior precursor to silly fight movies like Bloodsport. However, Kurosawa stays away from the egregious errors of Van Damme movies and instead allows his narrative and central character to develop quietly. There are also several excellent compositions, including the opening tracking shot. However, at times the narrative seems a bit nonsensical, particularly with the villain and his motivation.

The first act or so is a little shaky, and the cuts make the plot kinda confusing, but once you get the hang of what's happening it's quite enjoyable. You can see Kurosawa already has a pretty firm handle of how he wants to make movies. He makes the very un-cinematic martial art of jujitsu compelling to watch: the slowly-paced fight against the old man is lovely and sad, and the final fight in the grass is shockingly beautiful.

The underlying story is very simplistic. The characters are mere sketches, and even Sugata is just a basic template. However, it's not a complete waste of time. Kurosawa's craftsmanship shines through. You can see his style emerging. A couple of the matches are ridiculous but the others display an excellent feel for how to handle action. There's also a few lovely, lyrical moments like the shoe montage. And except for a few slow bits, the movie is fairly entertaining.

So I enter the era of Akira Kurosawa! And straight off the bat his style comes across a lot more intense and fresher than anything established directors like Yasujiro Ozu or Mikio Naruse had been doing lately. Tightly edited and framed, making the scenes count. No time for that casual approach Japanese cinema was often known for at the time. This had something urgent to tell, and with it's Judo story, this wasn't afraid to get physical. You get his creative sense as something special right away.

Sanshiro Sugata is widely accredited as Akira Kurosawa's directorial debut. The film revolves mainly and essentially on a basic plotline. The camera moves are quite bold at times, and the editing is far from perfect, however, Sanshiro is not the type of film to be enjoyed, but the type to be closely analyzed and carefully studied. It has been said that Sergio Leone's film making style was genuinely inspired and influenced by the works of Kurosawa. And by watching his debut film, it is striking t

notable for inspiring the mascot for the sega saturn

In the first part, Judo champion Sugata learns his art and then takes on the rival tradition of jujitsu; in the second, he battles an American boxer and a couple of half-crazy Karate brothers, triumphing over all through strength and purity of will. Kurosawa is still learning here, but many of his compositions and camera movements are striking, and the villains and fights are distinguished from each other with memorable details. The contest in a wind-filled field is particularly beautiful.

Kurosawa's first film pits judo and jujitsu against each other with the adventure of Sanshiro Sugata. It's a solid film, with some decent action scenes and a good performance from Susumu Fujita (Sugata). One thing I did really enjoy about Kurosawa's direction in this film, besides the few action sequences, is his tendency to leave a scene silent. I thought he employed it sparingly and when he did, it added emotional depth and tension to the scene.

Interesting for those who want to see what Kurosawa's first film making experience would show, and in that aspect, it's revealing. He already shows a mastery of framing and the use of scene wipes is on hand. Unfortunately with 18 minutes of footage lost due to war time censorship, we' ll never know what a good story this could have been.

Zamana yenik düşmüş bir film ama Kurosawa'nın bazı eğilimleri ta o zamandan belliymiş. Yağmurun, rüzgarın, çayırların kullanılışı vs.

One of the greats when he was merely one of the goods. Parts are a bit rough, it's clear that the 18 minutes that were lost were cut out with a meat cleaver, the pivotal tossed-in-the-river scene just seems badly shot, but Kurosawa is still Kurosawa.

67.500

Quite boring. The talent of Kurosawa is there, coming to life in some beautiful compositions and noticeable use of camera movement. The story however is bland as can be, with basically only a protagonist, antagonist, mentor and love interest in the mix. It's a pity a lot of the plot had to be explained using titlecards due to loss of footage.

Sugata is an action hero, and as an early template for action heroes, is a black-and-white outline of a character that should normally be shaded in, with some color or depth on a good day. It makes Kurosawa's debut more remarkable, and speaks to his talent, that despite this and other narrative flaws (even a few missing reels) the film is still immensely watchable and often engaging.

Very rough around the edges and immensely boring. I was fighting to stay awake.

A confident but uninspiring debut. Kurosawa shows his instinctive understanding of filmmaking; the fight scenes are well staged, the editing is quite snappy and he already has a skill for composition. The story though is your standard folk hero origin story, and Susumu Fujita is a bland lead.

A saga do judô primeira parte estreava há 80 anos no Japão. Karatê Kid Kurosawa style! E que style! É bem impressivo que este seja o primeiro filme do Kurosawa, já que seus filmes imediatos do pós guerra não são tão interessantes quanto esse, mesmo tendo sido picotado pelo governo japonês. DVD Versátil.

I saw a version of this that was very very poorly translated to english and made it hard to follow the story closely.However the overall story was good and considering when it was made some stunning visuals.

68.250

I'm not sure which was worse, the story or the martial arts fighting. All the fights were exceedingly lame. None of this movie was worth watching. There is a lot of Japanese mumbo-jumbo, stupid fake fighting and a love story that is about as boring as it can get. You would be wise to avoid this truly louse movie, as there is almost nothing to take away from it. I usually love these types of movies, but this one is just lame and lousy.

It's almost shocking how quickly Kurosawa's skill & signature style are evident in his directorial debut. Prior to his film career he was a painter and that clearly informed his mastery of framing & composition. The editing is wonderful, the music is terrific, & the acting is solid. Some points of character relationships could been more developed, but that content may have been in lost footage censored by the Japanese gov't. The final two fights are full of somber poetry & stunning camera work.

This early movie is primarily valuable in showing how great Kurosawa's improvement has been over the years.

I really liked the character of sanshiro and if the film was complete i might rate higher. As it is its understandably disjointed and the "villain" so to speak has so few scenes that his presence is barely felt making the final showdown much less impactful... Even though it was more about sanshiro vs himself more than vs any other character. The judo scenes are... Well mostly ok but less than thrilling in many places. Seeing kurosawas start is very interesting.

basic, but pretty moving, tense, ruminative