- published: 18 Aug 2010
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Sanjuro (椿三十郎, Tsubaki Sanjūrō?) is a 1962 black-and-white Japanese samurai film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirō Mifune.
Nine young samurai are worried about corruption in the leadership of their clan. They believe that the lord chamberlain, Mutsuta, is corrupt after tearing up a petition against organised crime. One samurai told the superintendent of this, who agreed to intervene. As the nine meet secretly at a temple and discuss their problem, a ronin (Mifune) emerges from another room where he had been resting. The ronin had overheard their plans, and suggests that the superintendent is in fact the real corrupt official. While at first the samurai are insulted by his claims, they soon find themselves surrounded by the official's men, proving that he was correct. The ronin fights off the men in return for money, however after realizing that Mutsuta could now be in danger, he decides to help the samurai bring down the corruption.
They first begin by rescuing Mutsuta's wife (played by Takako Irie) and daughter (Reiko Dan), but they remain oblivious to the danger around them, and maintain a cheery civility in contrast to the young samurai. The group hide in a house within the chamberlain's compound. Musuta's wife asks the ronin's name; looking out the window at tsubaki (camellia) trees, he invents the name Tsubaki Sanjūrō (meaning something like "Thirty year old Camellia"). The lady insists that Sanjuro refrain from unnecessary killing. The lady compares Sanjuro to a "glittering sword" and remarks that "the best sword stays in its scabbard."
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