After the success of his debut directing effort, Sanshiro Sugata (1943), Akira Kurosawa never had any intention of developing a sequel. Kurosawa said, "This film did not interest me in the slightest. I had already done it once. This was just warmed-over." But Toho saw the proposed follow-up as a moneymaker, and because Toho took the risk of giving him his first film to direct, Kurosawa felt obligated. Kurosawa wrote in his autobiography of Toho's eagerness and his reluctance: "Japan's film-production companies haven't heard the proverb about the fish under the willow tree that hangs over the stream-the fact that you hooked one there once doesn't mean you always will. These people continually remake films that were successful in the past. They don't attempt to dream new dreams; they only want to repeat the old ones...Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945) was not a remake, so the situation could have been worse, but it was still a question of refrying to a certain extent. I had to force myself to arouse the desire to go back to it and continue it."

Sanshiro Sugata Part Two takes place five years after the beginning of the first film. Sanshiro has returned from his travels and continues his apprenticeship under Shogoro Yano (Denjiro Okochi), the founder of the martial arts discipline of Judo. While trying to find the natural balance between his physical body and his spirit, Sanshiro must also prove his superiority to foreign challengers.

Sanshiro Sugata Part Two is widely considered to be Kurosawa's weakest film. Mitsuhrio Yoshimoto, in his book Kurosawa-Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, wrote, "Rather than being a sequel...Sanshiro Sugata Part Two is more like a bad remake of the former." Part of what makes Sanshiro Sugata Part Two deficient for critics and Kurosawa scholars is the overt propaganda that was refreshingly absent from Sanshiro Sugata. Early in the film, we are re-introduced to the title character when he comes across a brutish American sailor beating a Japanese boy. As Sugata uses his judo skills to throw the thug into the water, the boy looks up at the hero with beaming admiration. As Donald Richie wrote in The Films of Akira Kurosawa, "It escaped no one in the...audience that the hero was protecting a poor, helpless Japanese from a big, brutal foreigner. (Sanshiro Sugata) managed to avoid all of the clichés of the wartime Japanese film; the second subscribes to most of them."

Detrimental to the film was the inferior film stock available to Kurosawa at this point during World War II. Conditions in Japan had deteriorated so much that only scraps of recycled film stock could be found. During editing, the film stock was so bad, Kurosawa and his collaborators could barely make out the actors. This is most apparent in the climax of the film, atop a snowy mountain fight scene. It's nearly impossible to make out who is who, which is a shame because shooting the scene was difficult for the actors. Star Susumu Fujita had to shoot the scene barefoot in the snow. After each shot, he had to be carried to a bonfire to be warmed up. It was a "shoot to the death", Fujita said.

Wartime conditions affected more than just available film stock. Kurosawa had to complete post-production in the midst of widespread power outages during late winter, forcing them to work in buildings with no heat and freezing temperatures. Constant air raid sirens sent the director and his crew scurrying to the nearest shelter, with the unfinished film in their hands. When Sanshiro Sugata Part Two premiered May 3, 1945, there were barely any theaters in Japan to show it. More than three-quarters of Toho's theaters had been damaged by Allied bombings, and more than half had been completely obliterated.

Producer: Motohiko Ito
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa; Tsuneo Tomita (novel)
Cinematography: Takeo Ito
Music: Seiichi Suzuki
Film Editing: Akira Kurosawa (uncredited)
Cast: Denjiro Okochi (Shogoro Yano), Susumu Fujita (Sanshiro Sugata), Ryunosuke Tsukigata (Gennosuke Higaki/Teshin Higaki, Gennosuke's younger brother), Akitake Kono (Genzaburo Higaki), Yukiko Todoroki (Sayo), Shoji Kiyokawa (Yujiro Toda), Masayuki Mori (Yoshima Dan), Seiji Miyaguchi (Kohei Tsuzaki), Ko Ishida (Daisuburo Hidarimonji), Kazu Hikari (Kihei Sekine), Kokuten Kodo (Buddhist Priest Saiduchi), Ichiro Sugai (Yoshizo Fubiki), Osman Yusef (American Sailor), Roy James (William Lister).
BW-83m.

by Scott McGee