• I’ve seen a few spots where this is ranked as Kurosawa’s weakest film in his body of work and I don’t see it- in his debut here I think there is plenty of promise
  • A nice opening tracking shot through the town
  • From the beginning- the wipe edit!- the auteur most associated with the editing choice (and of course the inspiration for Lucas’ Star Wars choice of the cut transition
  • A very nice tracking shot again—this time surveying the arrangement of men in a confrontation early in the film—Kurosawa has a preternatural ability here- blocking and arrangement of figures in the frame
  • Shoots a figure in the background and rolls the camera over the shoulder his opponent in the foreground
  • The lighting is a struggle in a few scenes—but he does fix it in the next sequence with some striking lanterns that are much stronger
The lighting is a struggle in a few scenes—but he does fix it in the next sequence with some striking lanterns that are much stronger
  • Mentor/mentee—old wise master, and brash young protégé—a theme early on for Kurosawa- discussions of honor, humanity
  • So there is actually a slow-motion (Kurosawa as important as it gets as an auteur talking about the stylistic history of the slow-motion shot)—the window falling on the head here at 37 minutes after our title character throws him into the wall
  • There’s a chunk of the film missing- titles telling us of the battle- too bad – further reading – it looks like about 15-17 minutes were chopped and never found again
  • Montage of the two characters following in love with upward wipes – a nice scene
  • At 51 minutes- again moving the camera around the head of his character- not a full 360 degree shot- but still impressive
  • Slow-motion fighting epic battle- blurred camera focus to simulate Sugata being knocked woozy
  • The field epic battle during a storm—gorgeous composition of the two battling in the foreground with the referee in eh background
  • Recommend/Highly Recommend border