The first film in directory Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy may seem a little workmanlike at times, but it's enlivened by the brisk pace he sets, a great cast, and the messages lying underneath the melodrama. Any discussion of the film should of course start with the immortal Toshiro Mifune, who is in great form here, whether riding a horse, brandishing a sword, or tied and hung up in a tree, kicking his legs furiously. He plays Takezo, young man who goes off to war with a buddy for the glory of it, but after their unit is routed, finds himself hunted and on the run from then on.
The film is brightened considerably by a widow (Mitsuko Miko) and her daughter (Mariko Okasa), who the pair stumble across in the country. We find out that they make their living stripping dead samurai of their belongings, and soon both of them try to seduce Mifune's character. The daughter looks up at him with adoring eyes and lips parted after they fall from a horse together, and the mother, flush with excitement after seeing him in battle, tells him "Take me ... do whatever you want with me." Takezo demurs, and the pair then run off with his friend, but not before smearing his name.
One of the interesting aspects of the film was its theme of needing to have faith and trust in a loved one's character when they're away. We see this break down when Takezo's friend believes the widow's false accusations and runs off without him, and when Takezo in turn believes that his friend has abandoned him (and the man's fiancée) out of cowardice. The villagers are ready to believe the worst about the pair, and are soon marshalled into a manhunt. Meanwhile, the fiancée character (Kaoru Yachigusa) becomes attached to Takezo, and we see her faith tested over years while he is imprisoned. It's only a pure, enlightened soul who can pass such tests, but sometimes, ironically, life can still be bitter, and the film's ending is certainly poignant.
There is also something wonderful about the transformation of this character from an unruly guy dubbed "The Lawless," to someone on the samurai path, with the discipline to know that sometimes self-restraint is necessary in life. The way to enlightenment is not to try to make a name for oneself by blindly throwing oneself into battle, it's through calmness and the harnessing of one's natural strengths. It's the priest (Kuroemon Onoe) who is actually the hero here. He's always relaxed, feeling no shame when partially clad in front of a young woman ("Human beings are born naked"), nor fear while capturing the renegade. He smiles beatifically in all situations, even when the bandit threatens him, fearless of having his head lopped off.
There is an education that thus happens in this first episode, but I liked how Inagaki did not belabor the details. In the beginning the two men leave their village and quickly we see them being routed in battle, without the filler scenes of them being assimilated into the army or its preparations. Similarly, when Takezo is imprisoned, we see him exhorted to read spiritual texts to improve his mind, but we don't see long-drawn out scenes of this happening, only the result in Mifune's demeanor a few years later. He wisely kept the film to 93 minutes, and with fewer brush strokes, painted a great picture here.
