In response to the huge critical and commercial success of Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune re-teamed a year later to make Sanjuro, a hilarious comedy of manners altogether more light-hearted than its predecessor. The plot has Sanjuro (Mifune) running lazy rings around nine naive and clean-cut samurai and two genteel ladies while cleaning up a spot of corruption in local government. Kurosawa plays most of it for laughs by expertly parodying the conventions of Japanese period action movies, but in the very last scene he stages a startling switch of mood with an intense finale which may well be the briefest, and most breathtaking duel in all cinema.