Review of Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) by Andres B — 31 Mar 2016

Great first film of a trilogy. Takezo (Toshiro Mifune), who has has not yet acquired that famous warrior name of the movie's title. Is a hothead and a brute. Yes he is strong in ways: he can face and successfully defeat dozens of soldiers at a time, he has the strength of Joseph in that he can reject the advances of eager sexually hungry women; but Takezo also rushes into things and is quick to get into fights, and he lacks the brushes of subtlety and etiquette.

Takezo is also noble and loyal. Many times he is attacked by the very people he tries to help.

As the movie opens, Takezo and his friend Matahachi (Rentaro Mikuni, who also played Miyamoto in a film that competed with this one at the Japanese box office) are in a small village talking about how they can become great warriors.

Matahachi wants to leave the small village to become a warrior, but firsts he tests his girlfriend to see if she will be loyal.... she passes the test, much to Matahachi's satisfaction... but Matahachi himself isn't loyal.

I don't think its that he planned to be disloyal so much as that he overestimated his ability to be loyal. Sure, what Matahachi does is wrong but at the beginning of the story Matahachi finds it impossible to ever be disloyal to his girl, only to be proven wrong by his fallen nature.

Matahachi ends up marrying another woman who Takezo had pushed off of himself.

The monk Takuan who is Takezo's mentor has very unorthodox and entertaining teaching methods, hoping to tame his student's heart and in this way, not only make him a better person, but a better fighter.

The state of Takezo at the end of this first film how Star Wars would have ended if there had been no death star and Luke had reached Alderaan to finish his training.

This is quite a good movie, and any fan of asian cinema should check it out. Very good, not cliche ridden like many other asian films.