"Sanshiro Sugata"
1943
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Sanshiro Sugata, like so many of Kurosawa's characters, champions principles against a hostile, established order. In his first film, Kurosawa was already unconventional in style, as the hero advocates the newer art of judo against the traditional and well-entrenched jujitsu masters. Before proving himself, Sanshiro undergoes the long ordeal of learning judo as a discipline in a strikingly visual film extraordinary also for its explosive martial arts choreography. Japanese with English subtitles.
80 minutes.