Miyamoto Musashi (1954/I)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Hiroshi Inagaki

Writers:

Hideji Hôjô (play)
Hiroshi Inagaki (writer)

Release Date:

18 November 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Biography | Drama | History

Plot:

With his closest friend, Matahachi, Takezo (the town's wild, orphan kid) leaves his village to join an army on its way to battle...

Plot Keywords:

Samurai | Warrior | First Of Series | Jidai Geki | Japan

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Toshirô Mifune	...	Musashi Miyamoto (Takezo)
Rentaro Mikuni	...	Honiden Matahachi
Kuroemon Onoe	...	Takuan Osho
Kaoru Yachigusa	...	Otsu
Mariko Okada	...	Akemi
Mitsuko Mito	...	Oko, Matahachi's wife
Eiko Miyoshi	...	Osugi, Matahachi's mother
Akihiko Hirata	...	Seijuro Yoshioka
Kusuo Abe	...	Temma Tsujikaze
Eitarô Ozawa	...	Terumasa Ikeda (as Sakae Ozawa)
Akira Tani	...	Kawarano-Gonroku
Seijiro Onda	...	Chief Official
Fumito Matsuo	...	Petty Official
Masanobu Ôkubo	...	Petty Official
Takuzo Kumagaya	...	Villager (as Jirô Kumagawa)

Also Known As:

Master Swordsman
Musashi Miyamoto (USA) (video title)
Samurai
Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto
The Legend of Musashi

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG

Company:

Toho Company

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007) (TV)

Samurai Siddhartha Wild One

"Miyamoto Musashi" (1955): by Hiroshi Inagaki, starring Torshiro Mifune. This is an EPIC story of one man who sets out to travel far and wide throughout the land and himself in search of his identity and purpose. It has something of the feel of Herman Hesse's book "Siddhartha", but with Samurai battle scenes… (no, it is NOT a silly martial arts film). Having won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1955, this is 97 minutes of serious life dramas, with the priorities being Japanese, of course. One must think that with less than a decade having passed since Japan's defeat in WWII, this film's considerations (set in the 16th century) - about identity, goals, love, war, status, and true purpose - were nearly unavoidable. Beautiful photography, good color (considering the era), music that occasionally over-swelled the scene, believable sets, and again, a serious story line, make this one worth seeing. This will sound odd, but I found lots of parallels to the early Marlon Brando film, "The Wild One'". Feel free to disagree.