Judo Life
Sonny Chiba's first martial arts film, a partially fictionalized judo biopic based on prominent judoka Shiro Saigo (Chiba), the second student of judo founder Jigoro Kano (Naoki Sugiura). Akira Kurosawa’s Sanshiro Sugata is based on the same character and shares some scenes, but Judo for Life focuses more on the martial arts philosophy and training, including scenes depicting how the protagonist learned his famous cat-like landing, coined the term judo, and trained with Tsunejiro Tomita (Hideo Murata). There’s also a slight yakuza film influence. The port street ambush scene is found in both films, but in Judo for Life it’s not Kano but a travelling yakuza that jumps out of the rickshaw. Entertaining and beautifully old fashioned, one does however with there were more shades of gray between good and evil, and a stronger ninkyo-like moral / honour conflict.
Cast
Sonny Chiba
as
Naoki Sugiura
as
Takashi Kanda
as
Hideo Murata
as
Hisako Tsukuba
as
Harumi Sone
as
Yoshiko Sakuma
as
Fumitake Ōmura
as
Tokue Hanazawa
as
Harue Tone
as
