Sanshiro Sugata

Akira Kurosawa’s first credited film as director (he said he had as much control over his last few films as assistant director as he had over this) is missing about seventeen minutes of footage from its original release. Cut for various reasons by the censors in wartime Imperial Japan shortly after its release, the lost footage has never been recovered and the end result is incomplete. It’s not so incomplete as I can’t make heads or tails of it, but I’m pretty sure the film suffers for the l...