Sword for Hire

It's a time of chaos in Japan, with the clans fighting among themselves. Toshiro Mifune is helping to defend a castle, but confesses to another samurai that he wants to escape before he dies; the other says that he wants to die for the domain his family has served for generations. If Mifune doesn't feel that way, he should leave. Mifune escapes with Shirley Yamaguchi, the daughter of a bandit, and stays with her father's group for a while. He and Yamaguchi can't keep their hands off each other, so it's off to sell his sword to another clan.

This appears to have been planned as a movie for Kurosawa to direct, and he's given script credit; other Kurosawa regulars like Takashi Shimura and Eijirô Tôno also pop up, but that may be coincidental. They all worked frequently for the actual director, Hiroshi Inagaki. None more so that Mifune, who appeared in more than 20 of Inagaki's films.

In the end, though, this is a story of two lovers who are fated for each other, and not as impressive as it might have been. Part of the problem I have in it is the images, which seem to have had a lot of scenes shot in fog, and the print a bit dull.