Steineded How sad is this?

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Andres Salama This 1954 movie, set in Medieval Japan, and directed by Japanese master Kenji Mizoguchi is a great adventure film. The story is a long one (warning, major point plots will be revealed ahead) but basically is about a brother and sister, Zushio and Anju, children of a powerful but honest governor, who are taken from their mother and sold into slavery once their father fells into disgrace. They are forced to work under horrible conditions in a camp run by the brutal Sansho of the title. They spend many years there, becoming young adults in the camp. Zushio eventually manages to escape. A high imperial official, moved by his story, appoints him governor of the region where Sansho's camp is located. This will allow him to exact justice for what happened to him. But will he be able to save his mother and sister?Sansho is not the protagonist of the film, but he is a great villain. The actors include some stalwarts of Japanese classic cinema, such as Eitaro Shindo (who is great as Sansho), Kyoko Kagawa (playing Anju as an adult) or Kinuyo Tanaka (as the mother of Zushio and Anju). The movie's only weakness: a crucial plot point is hard to believe: the high official has scarcely met Zushio yet he quickly appoints him as a governor.

Geeky Randy Beautifully shot tragedy about a brother and sister taken from privilege and sold into slavery, and their journey of loss, redemption and sacrifice. Rightly a classic, but is perhaps a little too quick paced for its own good; director Mizoguchi wanted to focus more on the title character and slavery, but ended up getting overruled into focusing on a broken family piecing their lives back together. There is just too much beauty in the setting and tone for a critic to pry at what might be missing. The black-and-white not only sets the mood, but is visually stunning, as if each scene is a moving photograph—particularly when the family is traveling through fields of miscanthus sinensis (Chinese silver grass).***½ (out of four)

Artimidor Federkiel Kenji Mizoguchi's adaptation of Mori Ogai's narration "Sansho Dayu" is a real treat for any film lover with a weakness for Eastern cinema and the renditions of Japanese historical drama tales. In the center of the fictitious story however is not the eponymous cruel Sansho the Bailiff, but two children who suffer under the reign of said slavemaster and have to find their passage through adolescence all by themselves, bereft of the guidance of their parents. In a way it's a coming of age movie, a fable of course as well, extremely strong on the emotional front, morally charged, full of tragedy, pathos, resolve and the power of the human spirit, which reminds us that there's always the glimmer of hope even though one may be surrounded by the bleakest darkness.Mizoguchi's films often appear simple and straightforward, more realistic than fancy on first glance, but they also leave a natural and elegant impression at the same time. What appears to be a contradiction in fact adds an innate mythical quality to these pictures (see also e.g. "Ugetsu Monogatari"), wonderfully brought to light here by Kazuo Miyagawa's inspired cinematography of "Rashomon" fame. Miyagawa manages to perfectly frame the action and to capture and express the sentiments and the intentions of the characters by simple camera movements or pans, so that with minimalistic means the film achieves the most evocative emotional result. This becomes especially apparent in luminously poetical scenes like the ending, which is on various levels absorbing and engaging, or that famous scene where we become witness of a self-sacrifice - an exquisite visual highlight, where the the text of the original cannot keep up with. In general the script - while staying close to Ogai's narration - enhances the narration even more at key points, so that the viewer can't help but feel utter sympathy with the protagonists, and the resolution becomes heartfelt to say the least. In short: Alongside Ozu's and Kurosawa's masterpieces Mizoguchi's "Sansho the Bailiff" is one of the classic Japanese films one definitely should check out.

Robert J. Maxwell After the first twenty minutes or so I wasn't expecting too much from this production, despite the cachet of the director's name. A humanistic governor of a rural Japanese village in the feudal era is sent into exile and his wife and two children must wander the roads. They run into bandits. The mother is sold into slavery on one island and her little boy and girl are slaves on another. Innumerable tribulations follow and I worried this might turn into a 1954 Japanese version of torture porn.By this time, though, I noticed a couple of interesting things about the film. One was that every shot -- and I mean every single shot -- was done with the eye of a painter. The compositions were nearly perfect.Another thing I noticed was -- well, have you ever seen one of Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns? Or any of their imitations? You know, the movies that are full of greasy faces in choker close ups, the bone-white teeth glistening out at you? If you have, then imagine the opposite. I only saw one close up in the entire movie, and that comes near the end when the identity of a blind, lame old woman on the beach is revealed. In the absence of close ups, even a medium shot, or a shot of someone from the waist up, is a bit of a shock.Anyone who's kept his eyes open will be familiar with the mistreatment of slaves. The forms they take seem universal. You get separated from your family, the women serve as whores, they're beaten for infractions, and if they try to run away they're branded or they have their Achilles' tendon cut.After eight years of suffering, the young boy, Zushio manages to escape from the manor of the slave owner Sansho, a Bailiff. He comes across one of those benefactors found in some stories -- "Ben Hur" or a tale by Dickens. As a result, he becomes governor of the province, frees all the slaves, arrests Sancho the Bailiff, and resigns his post in order to go in search of two slaves who had become his friends, as well as his sister and his mother. The results are mixed.When Zushio escapes, the pace of the film picks up and by the end I was thoroughly involved in the fate of the young man and his family. And that's despite the fact that this is not a Samurai movie. There is no swordplay or any genuine combat, although it could easily have fitted into the narrative.The story is rudimentary, not very complicated, and the movie is in black and white with subtitles. But this is a tragedy of the sort that is universal in its appeal. Well worth catching, as long as you have some patience during the establishing scenes.