Miyamoto Musashi: Nitoryu kaigen (1963)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Tomu Uchida

Writers:

Naoyuki Suzuki (adaptation)
Tomu Uchida (adaptation)

Release Date:

14 August 1963 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Jidai Geki | Based On Novel

Cast

Kinnosuke Nakamura	...	Miyamoto Musashi (Takezo)
Wakaba Irie	...	Otsu
Isao Kimura	...	Hon'iden Matahachi
Chieko Naniwa	...	Osugi
Kusuo Abe	...	Uncle
Mitsuru Takeuchi	...	Jotaro
Michiyo Kogure	...	Oko
Satomi Oka	...	Akemi
Shinjiro Ebara	...	Yoshioka Seijuro
Mikijiro Hira	...	Yoshioka Denshichiro
Choichiro Kawarazaki	...	Hayashi Kichijiro
Hiroshi Minami	...	Toji - Gion Fujitsugu
Ryosuke Kagawa	...	Naota Ryohei
Ichitarô Kuni	...	Yokoyama Kansuke
Kinya Suzuki	...	Oike

Also Known As:

Birth of two Sword Style
Miyamoto Musashi: The Duel Against Yagyu
Two-Sword Fencing Is Born (International: English title)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Toei Company

Movie Connections:

Follows Miyamoto Musashi: Hannyazaka no ketto (1962)

3rd in the series

An improvement on the 2nd, but still not up to the high standard of the first.

The story is more erratic this time. Things continue from the exact end-point of the 2nd film, at the end of the battle scene, where MM considers the lessons learned. He is there, dominating the film for the first half hour, and then, apropos of nothing in particular, abruptly disappears from the film for the next hour. Of course, he is still referred frequently by most of the other characters in his absence. During this hour, some of the familiar characters are followed and at least one crucial character is introduced - the boastful young Sasaki Kojiro, with his unusually long sword.

One took quite a while to recover the flow of the story after this jolting change of pace, but the overall story begins to take even more shape during this time. Therefore, although it was perhaps not the best way to handle proceedings, things eventually worked, and I didn't find the story any less compelling for it.

Otsu and Akemi are still around, and the old woman Osugi is still doggedly trying to inflict pain upon MM. The ending I found very clunky - MM does all but say "stay tuned for the next episode". Argh ! But still, I'll be watching it. Less action than either of the first two, but still pretty good.