SAMURAI
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Three films make up one long story, a
fictionalized account of a historical samurai and what is
perhaps the most famous samurai duel ever. Rating: +2.
Perhaps the most fabled samurai duel ever was the duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro. Musashi had been a ronin from an early age. After the great battle of Sekigahara, he became a notorious bandit until virtually forced by a Buddhist priest to learn zen. After that he became a samurai in service to a lord and traveled the country, winning more than sixty duels. Musashi is famous for, among other things, writing GORIN NO SHO (a.k.a. THE BOOK OF THE FIVE RINGS). Sasaki Kojiro was a brilliant young swordsman using unorthodox technique. Each man had an impressive list of victories when they faced each other on the shores of Ganryu Island.
In 1953 and 1954, Hiroshi Inagaki made three films based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi. The first one--known variously as THE LEGEND OF MUSASHI, THE MASTER SWORDSMAN, and MIYAMOTO MUSASHI--tells how Musashi fought in the battle of Sekigahara, how he became a bandit, and finally how he became a full-fledged samurai.
DUEL AT OCHIJOJI TEMPLE (the continuation) finds Musashi's past catching up with him, forcing him into a great battle against tremendous odds, as well as a battle with himself in order to follow the way of the samurai code. We also meet the enigmatic young swordsman Sasaki Kojiro, whose name would be ever linked with Musashi's.
The conclusion, DUEL ON GANRYU ISLAND or MUSASHI AND KOJIRO, tells how Musashi turns his hand from samurai to farmer. Part of the story seems to have been the inspiration for Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI. Finally Musashi must meet his young opponent on the beach of Ganryu.
These are not so much three films as one film in three parts and have been called SAMURAI I, SAMURAI II, and SAMURAI III. They total more than five hours in length and tell a nearly seamless story with complex characters and situations. Director Inagaki returned to the story of the famous duel, incidentally, in 1967. His KOJIRO also told the story of the duel, but gave Kojiro's history instead of Musashi's. One minor problem, at least for me, is that after the battle of Sekigahara comes the peaceful early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. (Readers of SHOGUN should realize that Sekigahara was the real name of the great battle in SHOGUN. Toranaga's real name was Ieyasu Tokugawa.) But my point is that these were times of peace and the duels were not fought over politics but were more like sports events. They do not have great historical significance.
The production was from Toho and fans of 1950s Toho films will recognize familiar faces such as that of Takashi Shimura, who played the wise old scientist from the first two Godzilla films, the dying man from IKIRU, and the lead samurai in SEVEN SAMURAI (the part played by Yul Brynner in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN). Also present is Akihiko Hirata, whose oxygen destroyer was the only weapon ever to kill permanently a godzilla and whose report foretold the coming of the Mysterians.
This clearly was an expensive production and Inagaki not only used color at a time when most Japanese films were in black and white, he also made full and unorthodox use of color with (for example) surrealistically vivid skies. Just as Masaki Kobayashi did with the 1964 KWAIDAN and Kenji Sawara did with 1957's RODAN, Inagaki gets the full effect he can from the color photography.
SAMURAI is probably not classic film in the same way as Kurosawa's samurai films are, but it is a sort of light classic in the way a film such as HIGH NOON is. If it shows up at your video store it is certainly worth seeing. I rate SAMURAI a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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