-Devdutt Trivedi
Sugata Sanshiro Part II was completed at the time of the American Occupation of Japan in 1945. The film uses the sequel format effectively, to react to Japan’s tumultuous campaign in the war which ended with humiliation at the hands of America, with questions about being Japanese, particularly the idea of Japanese masculinity, which suffered as a result of the war. Kurosawa addresses this concern through re-using the masculine martial arts genre. Although amongst Kurosawa’s weaker attempts, the film would influence several important Hollywood action blockbusters and special effects films over the next four decades including George Lucas’ multi-million dollar grossing Star Wars Trilogy.
Kurosawa wanted to make a sequel to Sugata Sanshiro so as to flesh out the character of Gennosuke Higaki. However he had to succumb to ideological pressures and the film script instead became a confrontation between American and Japanese masculinity, between Japanese judo, the more ‘native’ martial art and American boxing.
Sugata witnesses the Japanese martial fighters being defeated one after the other by the American boxer, William Lister until in a single sequence Sugata lifts and throws Lister to emerge victorious. Sugata’s guilt, at succumbing to an American form of wrestling instead of challenging the boxer in his Japanese martial format, makes Sugata go through tremendous guilt, a point which is subsequently addressed in his talks to both his master Shogoro Yano and the Buddhist priest.
In an important point in the opening sequence Sugata controls the Caucasian looking boxer as he attempts to pummel a Japanese man by saying ‘Please. Have some mercy.’ This line explains Kurosawa’s positioning of the protagonist Sugata as Japan’s attempt through the Japanese Studio System at creating a hero to uplift Japan after their humiliating experience at the war.
It is curious to notice that Kurosawa was particularly susceptible to having to make jingoistic films at the end of the war. One can read this as being largely because of his specific treatment of the theme of masculinity, particularly in its balance of the brave-humble male and surrendering pupil that was transformed during the war, to a feeling of subservience to the State.
It is startling to observe how accurately Lucas replicates the format of Sugata Sanshiro II. Lucas transforms Tsuneo Tomita’s Japanese tale to a discourse on American masculinity in a Zen tradition without emphasizing a basis to this Zen practice. Luke Skywalker’s legendary reputation in the Return of the Jedi (1983) is reminiscent to the resounding admiration that Sanshiro already has at the beginning of the second part. (Kurosawa adds
to this, by using a song on the soundtrack, which has lyrics that indicate the common man’s fear of Sugata’s skills several times.) Lucas uses Kurosawa’s format of letting the main characters wisdom and bravery be denoted in the dialogues without showing it in a fight sequence. The film consists of two sequences, a short sequence to show Sugata’s superiority to Lister, and the long choreographed sequence at the end. In The Return of the Jedi, Lucas would use the same format by showing a short sequence where Luke fights and one long sequence at the end with the villain. Several characters are also lifted, with Sugata being the most obvious inspiration for Luke Skywalker and Gennosuke Higaki as the repeating villain in both of the Kurosawa films, as the inspiration for Lucas’ character of Darth Vader. Lucas’ characters, the supreme master Yoda and Luke’s teacher Obi-Wan Kenobi find their inspirations in the characters of Shogoro Yano and the Buddhist priest respectively.
The premise of the film is defeating the Higaki brothers of the karate practice to establish the superiority of judo. Judo has already emerged superiority as a martial arts form to jujitsu in the first part. This establishment of judo as the superior most martial practice makes it identifiable with the all powerful state. The karate fighters have faith in their practice and are equated by Kurosawa to the working class, trying to oppose the all pervading power of the state represented by judo practitioners.
Sugata’s own state of guilt comes through his martial arts practice which he has established as being the superior most of Japanese martial arts and there is akin to a ruling party in the Japanese world of martial arts. When Sugata asks the wrestler of the jujitsu practice as to why he is fighting in the American format, he calmly states his attempt at making money and in this way being entrenched in a working-class logic and that too because of the efforts of Sugata himself.
Kurosawa establishes his trademark use of nature which serves a background to the finale; a repetition of a similar trope used by Kurosawa in Sugata Sanshiro. In the sequel, the remarkable final sequence between Higaki and Sanshiro utilizes Kurosawa’s excellent location shooting to capture snow instead of the element of wind which would serve as backdrop for the first part. The actors went barefoot on snowy ground and Susumu Fujita who played Sugata, joked with Kurosawa for years about how he had suffered for the film.
Eventually when the film was released, at the end of the war, there were almost no theatres to show it.
Courtesy
Stephen Prince, The Criterion Collection
Currents in Japanese Cinema, Tadao Sato, 1984