User reviews

Kigoro Ikushima and Kinuyo Tanaka come to Chôjûrô Kawarasaki, seeking his help in avenging their father. His death was at the hands of a follower of the Gan school, and he fights them regularly, alone against a dozen of them, when they're not trying to ambush him. He kills them all, of course, The real Musashi wrote a book on swordplay and another on the philosophy behind his style of swordsmanship, and won more duels - 61 in total - than anyone else in Japanese history. Under the direction of Kenji Mizoguchi, he spouts bits of philosophy and hacks people to death when he isn't carving statues of the Buddha,

It's a potboiler distinguished by the careful set design and imagery that Mizoguchi usually gave his movies. This was produced as part of a multi-media campaign that the Japanese government was running, extolling the glories of bushido; the credits make mention of a series of articles that was running in the newspapers.

Musashi was a seminal character in the samurai cult, but the 55 minutes this film takes doesn't offer more than a gloss on the actual legend. Inagaki would direct a three-movie version in his SAMURAI trilogy. This is simply a propaganda film, despite the nice touches that Mizoguchi was incapable of not offering.

Before deciding to watch this film or not, one must know that it is a war propaganda film and must not expect anything brilliant from it. Although it is not a bad film (actually I was entertained throughout the whole thing), many might get disappointed by what it is being portrayed, as in most part of the film Mizoguchi, or more properly, Miyamoto Musashi, spends most of his time telling the right path a warrior must follow (the way of the sword). Aside from that, the print is of very low quality, that it actually seems as if it had been recorded with a modern low quality hand-held camera, the only difference being obviously that it is in black and white. Besides, with a running time that barely reaches one hour, one can't expect a whole retelling of the ultimate samurai warrior. If you're looking to learn more about this incredible legendary samurai, or if you expect a complete biography of him, you should look elsewhere (for instance, Hiroshi Inagaki's trilogy).

The plot begins with Shinobu and his brother Genishiro imploring Miyamoto Musashi to teach them the way of the sword, so that they can avenge his father's death. This is where Miyamoto Musashi starts to tell of the right path of the samurai and that they should not learn the way of the sword on account of revenge, as it is not the right spirit one should have when learning it. When their father's murderers see that they are under the training of Miyamoto Musashi, they decide to ask one of the strongest samurai in the country (Kojiro Sasaki) for help. Kojiro finds here a great opportunity to fight Musashi, the only man who could ever match him in a sword duel.

All Mizoguchi's known techniques are here, although they might not seem that spectacular because of the print quality. The battle scenes are actually really good in here; they all seem real even with the lack of any blood. It also helps that all the battles are shown in a single sequence, which adds more credibility to them.

This film is surely not for everyone, I can't even say if Mizoguchi's fans will appreciate it. I for one found it good; it is neither outstanding nor bad.

My score: 7.6/10