Sengoku burai

Another Japanese film from the 50s with the famous tandem of Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa here being only one of the screenwriters. Toshiro Mifune, as in many other famous films of his, is, what else could he be, than a samurai, a very good samurai. Two women fall in love with him and, it is not very clear, if he is also equally in love with both, with the same intensity, he being more of a dreamer, who dreams of "flying from the top of the highest mountains like a bird". The two female beauties are Shirley Yamaguchi in the role of Oryo (as Yoshiko Yamaguchi) and Shinobu Asaji in the role of Kano. Hiroshi Inagaki, the director, made a film similar to the samurai productions of Akira Korosawa or Masaki Kobayashi.

It's a time of chaos in Japan, with the clans fighting among themselves. Toshiro Mifune is helping to defend a castle, but confesses to another samurai that he wants to escape before he dies; the other says that he wants to die for the domain his family has served for generations. If Mifune doesn't feel that way, he should leave. Mifune escapes with Shirley Yamaguchi, the daughter of a bandit, and stays with her father's group for a while. He and Yamaguchi can't keep their hands off each other, so it's off to sell his sword to another clan.

This appears to have been planned as a movie for Kurosawa to direct, and he's given script credit; other Kurosawa regulars like Takashi Shimura and Eijirô Tôno also pop up, but that may be coincidental. They all worked frequently for the actual director, Hiroshi Inagaki. None more so that Mifune, who appeared in more than 20 of Inagaki's films.

In the end, though, this is a story of two lovers who are fated for each other, and not as impressive as it might have been. Part of the problem I have in it is the images, which seem to have had a lot of scenes shot in fog, and the print a bit dull.

This film begins during a turbulent period in Japanese history with 3 samurai by the names of "Sasa Hayatenosake" (Toshiro Mifune), "Kagami Yakeiji" (Danshiro Ichikawa) and "Tachibana Jurata" (Rentaro Mikuni) serving together and being besieged in a castle by a superior force. Knowing they are all going to perish, Yakeiji is determined to die defending the castle, while both Hayate and Jurata both consider escaping that night. To that effect, although Hayate isn't scared of death, his reason for wanting to escape is due to his love for a woman named "Kano" (Shinobu Asaji) who is also in the castle and cannot escape without his help. On the other hand, he also feels a certain amount of kinship with Yakeiji, and feels somewhat guilty about abandoning him while the battle is yet to be fought. Because of this crisis of conscience, he decides to entrust Jurata with the welfare of Kano while he reluctantly fights next to Yakeiji. Interestingly enough, although Yakeiji is determined to die fighting, he is wounded and taken prisoner. Hayate, on the other hand, fights as long as he can but, even though he is badly wounded, manages to eventually escape. Meanwhile, both Jurata and Kano are able to evade the enemy soldiers and also escape. However, after several days, it soon becomes clear that Jurata has fallen in love with Kano even though she is still determined to find Hiyate at any cost. For his part, Hiyata is found and nursed back to health by a young woman named "O'Ryo" (Shirley Yamaguichi) who subsequently falls in love with him as well. What none of these people realize, however, is that their destinies are interwoven and each of them will meet one another--at least once again--under extremely serious circumstance. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out the be a pretty good film, all things considered. Admittedly, it is somewhat dated, and the picture quality suffers a because of it. Even so, I enjoyed this particular movie, and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.