This one slows your pulse down instead of spiking it. There's no spectacle to hide behind: a samurai spots a dancing maiden getting hauled off by ruffians, steps in, and then the whole thing becomes about him wanting to impress her enough to walk her to the spring flower dance. That's the engine, and the film is honest about it. What people actually rave about is how alive the Genroku period feels here, and how much affection the artwork carries in gesture and framing rather than dialogue, plus the fact that a print this old survived in the shape it did at all. Fair warning: the story is thin, and somewhere past the rescue the thread goes slack and gets hard to follow. Watch it for the courtship, not the plot. It's a man doing something slightly ridiculous because a girl danced.

A samurai sees a young dancing girl being carried off by a gang of thugs. He steps in and rescues her, then brings her along to the spring flower dance. Named for Sankichi and Osayo, this romantic adventure film is set in Japan's Genroku period, as its title indicates.