What martial art is central to Kurosawa’s 1943 film Sanshiro Sugata? The answer is judo.
The film follows Sanshiro, a talented but undisciplined young man who seeks instruction and eventually becomes a student of the judo master Shogoro Yano. His training is not presented merely as physical combat: the story treats judo as a path toward discipline, humility, self-control, and moral development. Sanshiro’s transformation gives the film its dramatic structure.
Sanshiro Sugata was Kurosawa’s feature-directing debut and was adapted from Tsuneo Tomita’s 1942 novel. That book drew on the historical rivalry between the Kodokan school of judo and a school associated with traditional jujutsu. The film therefore reflects both a fictional coming-of-age story and the modernization of Japanese martial arts. Viewers sometimes confuse the answer with jujutsu because the plot includes rivalry between the two traditions, but judo is the practice Sanshiro formally studies. The film’s success led to a 1945 sequel, Sanshiro Sugata Part II, also directed by Kurosawa.