After the parents of Shinobu (Kinuyo Tanaka) and Genichiro (Kigoro
Ikushima) are slain, they turn to legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi
(Chojuro Kawarasaki) to teach them martial arts to have their revenge. He
refuses to teach them martial arts for fighting though but agrees to teach
them in the way of the sword, his philosophy on which he bases his
mastery of the sword. The Sanoto brothers, who have killed Shinobu and
Genichiro's parents, learn that the kids have enlisted the aid of
Miyamoto, so in panic they turn to his fiercest rival Sasaki (Kan'emon
Nakamura) for help. Sasaki is not at all interested in the conflict the
whole affair is based on, but he sees this as a chance to finally
challenge Musashi to a duel to find out who's the superior swordsman. He
slays Genichiro, by no means his match with the sword, in cold blood, and
only leaves Shinobu alive so she can tell Musashi who has killed her
brother, to make Musashi accept his challenge and throw him off-balance as
he figures every kind of emotional involvement will make his fighting
weaker. Miyamoto is a clever fox though, so he lets a whole year pass
before accepting Sasaki's challenge, then on the day of the fight he
slaughters the Sanoto brothers to get Sasaki emotionally involved, and
uses allkinds of other tricks to catch Sasaki off-guard, and when the two
men duel, Musashi manages to kill Sasaki with but one strike, because he
has long defeated him on an emotional level ... Interesting
take on one of Japan's most popular folk heroes, this one concentrating
not so much on the action as such but on his martial arts philosophy, much
of which is based on scheming and in which humans are treated as mere
pawns and human emotion is actually a threat - which is a topic piccked up
in many martial arts flicks of course, but it's never made as clear as
here. On a directorial level, director Mizoguchi at the same time
downplays the action and gives a ritualistic ring to it, just like in a
chess game, which is very much in line with the film's basic topic. Interesting,
to say the least.
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