Sanjuro (Japanese: 椿三十郎, Hepburn: Tsubaki Sanjūrō) is a 1962 Japanese jidaigeki film directed, co-written and edited by Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune. It is a sequel to Kurosawa’s 1961 Yojimbo.
Originally an adaptation of the Shūgorō Yamamoto novel Hibi Heian, the script was altered following the success of the previous year’s Yojimbo to incorporate the lead character of that film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjuro
Killer movie, one of the best of Kurasawa’s samurai films, second only to Seven Samurai and arguably more entertaining than Ran.
One of my favorite parts is towards the beginning where these conspiring young samurai realize they’re surrounded by the enemy, look at each other, and grimly draw their swords to meet certain death. Mifune’s character’s like: nah, c’mon no need for that… and takes control of things. There are lots of moments like that, even more important than the sword fighting. Like the very last fight, it doesn’t matter how it happened, it matters more that it did happen and why.