Review of Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) by Kenneth L — 31 Mar 2016

Another very good movie with that greatest of Japanese actors, Toshiro Mifune. Despite the fact that it is about a swordman, this actually has a good deal less action than some of his other films, such as Yojimbo and Sanjuro.

It's mainly a drama about a man being persecuted by his former neighbors. This is definitely only the beginning of the character's story; there were two more movies in the series. The movie offers no real closure at the end, so I am going to have to see the other two for the whole story.

The acting is good in that dramatic Japanese way; Japanese acting allows for a lot more yelling and such than Western acting. The color cinematography is pretty excellent, although too dark to see the characters sometimes.

This is the first old Japanese movie I've seen that wasn't made by Akira Kurosawa, and shows me that although Kurosawa is deservedly the most famous name in Japanese cinema from the time, he was by no means the only skilled moviemaker around.