Sugata and Yano have established the dominance of Judo over jujitsu by defeating all comers, but Sugata is not satisfied. Yes, he is the best Judo practitioner in the land, but he is plagued by his victories and is not sleeping.
Judo is also facing competition from boxing and karate. Yes, boxing has come to Japan with the occupation. The anti-American sentiment is strong in this film as the top boxer is a drunken sailor who pick on poor rickshaw drivers until Sugata manages to cool him off - laterally. They will meet again.
Sugata finally comes to terms with who he is and dispatches the boxer in the first round. Now, the karate thugs have been injuring many to get Sugata to fight.
The actual fight is a letdown. It is staged to look almost like those shadow puppets. The calm and cool Sugata is facing a grimacing overly loud competitor.
It should not be a surprise who wins, but there are more demons on the horizon. Five years after this film, I will have arrived. What will happen then? The only distraction was the poor quality of the film. One would hope that a better copy would have survived. Of course, we have to wait until the arrival of Toshiro Mifune before Akira Kurosawa perfects his Samurai films and becomes the great master that he was.
