5. 17 Minutes Of Footage - Sanshiro Sugata
Shanshiro Sugata is the Japanese title of, and main character in, renown Japanese film-maker Akira Kurosawa's directorial debut movie. The film tells the story of Shanshiro, a man who journeys into the city with hopes of finding a sensei who will teach him karate. But shortly after he finds a school, a judo master shows up and challenges him, during which he subsequently throws them one-by-one into the canal. The judo-master's rickshaw driver disappears during the battle, though, so Shanshiro hops on the opportunity: he steps in as the driver, with hopes of being taken on as his protégé. He eventually becomes a master of Judo himself, even surpassing the abilities of his sensei. But he doesn't have much self-control, so his master won't let him fight. In a bid to prove he doesn't fear death, Shanshiro jumps into a pond and refuses to get out until his sensei will give him a chance to fight. When he wakes up the next morning - having fallen asleep overnight while clinging to a log - he has an epiphany. While looking at a flower, he recognizes the beauty of life and realises that focusing on this allows him to live in the moment and overcome his fear of death. This revelation, along with his natural abilities, helps Shanshiro to become one of the most feared fighters around. This film acts as a nice segue from the second half of our list. It's evidently clear right from the onset of his directorial career that Kurosawa was both an extremely talented and visionary filmmaker. This film contains lots of the symbolism, techniques and themes that would later become trademark. When the film was released, government censors trimmed 17 minutes from the film, likely destroying it in the process (as was common practice at the time). The Criterion release of the opens with the notation included with the 1952 Japanese re-release: "This film has been modified from the original version of Akira Kurosawa's debut film, which opened in 1943, without consulting the director or the production staff. 1,845 feet of footage was cut in 1944 to comply with the government's wartime entertainment policies." This is strange, as Kurosawa picked this story because it was particularly Japanese, and thought that if he went out of his way to remove any didactic elements, he wouldn't have a problem with the censors. The original script, which includes the removed scenes, still exists, but it seems that little research has been done to reveal what was actually removed. I would certainly be interesting to know (and something to investigate). Kurosawa would direct a sequel to the film in 1945, and the original would go on to be remade no less than 5 times between 1955 and 1977. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the lost footage will ever turn up, as it was probably destroyed shortly after being removed. What we have now is probably the most complete version of Kurosawa's classic debut that we will ever get a chance to see.