And the Theme for July's Marco Movie Night is...
Sequels That Don't Suck: or Sanjuro - A Kinder, Gentler Yojimbo
Friday July 29th at Chez Noyola
7:30 - 8:00 -- 30 minutes of trailers, interviews, film clips, parodies, etc. inspired by tonight's film selections.
8:00 - 9:30 -- Sanjuro (1962) / Dir: Akira Kurosawa
9:30 - 10:00 -- Excerpt on the making of Sanjuro from "Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create"
Wow, has it really been three months since my last movie night? After another lengthy hiatus I'm ready to host another one. I don't normally pick sequels but everyone seemed to enjoy June 2010's movie night entry Yojimbo and the follow-up film Sanjuro, while different in tone, is a worthy companion piece. Better yet, Sanjuro works perfectly well as a stand-alone film and doesn't require any familiarity with the original at all. As usual, it's BYOB but sake and snacks will be provided.
"You tired of being stupid yet?" - Sanjuro
With 1961's Yojimbo (The Bodyguard) writer/director Akira Kurosawa upended the conventions of the samurai film with his blackly comic tale of a scruffy ronin who travels under the alias of Sanjuro. With its compelling "man with no name" anti-hero, impressive action scenes and an anachronistic jazz-influenced soundtrack, Yojimbo struck a chord with audiences around the world and broke box office records in Japan. It's no surprise then that the studio clamored for a sequel.
Kurosawa agreed to direct the follow-up but he wasn’t about to repeat himself. While Yojimbo drew equally from Hollywood westerns and the hard-boiled detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett, Sanjuro ditches the showdowns on dusty streets and film noir trappings in favor of well appointed country estates and sunlit pleasure gardens. In Yojimbo, Sanjuro wipes out a town full of gangsters not for justice but for his own profit and amusement. In the sequel, he agrees to aid a group of inexperienced samurai in a noble cause. Along the way, Sanjuro must expose the true source of corruption in the province, rescue the family of a kidnapped chamberlain and keep his bumbling comrades from getting themselves killed while trying to appease the chamberlain's wife who insists that he try not to kill so much. One part action adventure and one part comedy of manners, Sanjuro is that rare sequel that is as good or better than the original.