Judo Life

Synopsis

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.

Main Cast

Sonny Chiba

Age : N/A | Popularity : 93%

Naoki Sugiura

Age : 79 | Popularity : 3%

Takashi Kanda

Age : 68 | Popularity : 7%

Hideo Murata

Age : 73 | Popularity : 3%

Hisako Tsukuba

Age : 84 | Popularity : 4%

Harumi Sone

Age : 78 | Popularity : 3%

Yoshiko Sakuma

Age : 85 | Popularity : 7%

Fumitake Ōmura

Age : 90 | Popularity : 3%

Crew

Department	Role	Name
Directing	Director	Kiyoshi Saeki
Writing	Screenplay	Toshio Matsuura
	Novel	Ryutaro Kondo
Crew	Cinematography	Shichirô Hayashi
Sound	Music	Taichiro Kosugi
Department	Role	Name

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