Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple.

Review #2493: Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple.

Cast: 

Toshiro Mifune (Miyamoto Musashi), Kōji Tsuruta (Sasaki Kojirō), Mariko Okada (Akemi), Kaoru Yachigusa (Otsu), Michiyo Kogure (Dayū Yoshino), Mitsuko Mito (Okō, Akemi's mother), Akihiko Hirata (Seijūrō Yoshioka), Daisuke Katō (Tōji Gion), Kurōemon Onoe (priest Takuan (Takuan Sōhō), Sachio Sakai (Matahachi Honiden), Yū Fujiki (Denshichirō Yoshioka), Machiko Kitagawa (Kogure), Eiko Miyoshi (Osugi, Matahachi's mother), and Eijirō Tōno (Shishido Baiken) Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki (#2173 - Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto)

Review: 

Sure, let's do another samurai movie. You might remember Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) utilized the epic novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa (about the life and deeds of swordsman Miyamoto Musashi) for a worthwhile film that obviously had to keep going. A variety of people returned to do this film ranging from its director in Hiroshi Inagaki and its writer Tokuhei Wakao (who co-wrote the last one with Inagaki as based on a play by Hideji Hojo), its assistant director in Jun Fukuda and select members of its cast. You get some action pretty quickly in the film with the opening that sees the kusarigama (a chain-sickle) get used up before one sees the lead engage himself in self-development while also trying to take on a school of swordsmanship. One year later saw the release of Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island, which I take it will surely have an involving duel between Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, who apparently was described as the toughest opponent he ever faced (of course all of this happens before Musashi even turned 30, because the actual man ended up dying in 1645 in his sixties, in a cave, from what might have been lung cancer).

Sure, you might wonder where the path of enlightenment comes from for a movie that involves a good deal of slashing. Well, there is meant to be a path for the pilgrims who wish to learn the ways of what a samurai are besides thinking it means to turn people into dead slabs (it doesn't involve blood, but in fairness, it was the 1950s). Mifune is now going through the road of stoicism that basically reveals that the road of honor and respect can be a very tenuous one when nobody plays exactly to the rules. There are no easy solutions to growing up as a person beyond actually doing it. Everyone has their own murky intentions because no one is defined by just being someone in somewhere. It just so happens that committing to fight one man ends up being a confrontation with a school because of other people's waylaid views. Mifune is about as good in stoic conviction, mainly because you get the idea pretty quickly that his destiny is going to go down to his choices of seeing himself beyond who he thinks he is and to actually realize it. One respects things in nature and life without becoming reliant on them, I suppose. Tsuruta makes for a solidly addition to the proceedings, curious in his maneuvering at least when compared to the drama played out by returners such as Yachigusa (okay there's also another going after him and a whole thing about other returners, but I think you get the idea). The opening battle sequence is there to show that the journey isn't getting better at swordplay, because anybody can go with swords when they are young. The ambushes that are shown in the film are pretty interesting for the time period, and in general you get a movie that allows its final sequences to breathe on their own in what is past and what is to come. As a whole, Samurai II continues the journey of its one curious samurai with plenty of energy and interest in making a journey of fulfillment come around with enough fun beyond looking at things as just moving through the next blade movement. It sets the stage for what is to come in the next film in setting how the journey has gone in learning and seeing beyond the trappings of period and action dramas for a pretty good time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Drunken Angel.

Review #2004: Drunken Angel.

Cast: 

Takashi Shimura (Doctor Sanada), Toshiro Mifune (Matsunaga), Reisaburo Yamamoto (Okada), Michiyo Kogure (Nanae), Chieko Nakakita (Nurse Miyo), Eitarō Shindō (Takahama), Noriko Sengoku (Gin), Shizuko Kasagi (Singer), Masao Shimizu (Oyabun), and Yoshiko Kuga (Schoolgirl) Directed by Akira Kurosawa (#968 - Throne of Blood, #1385 - Seven Samurai, and #1870 - Sanshiro Sugata)

Review: 

Well, it was time to do another Kurosawa film, this time with dueling interests. In addition to it belonging as a yazuka film, it is the first film with Kurosawa did with Toshiro Mifune. They would do sixteen films together over the course of nearly two decades. Mifune actually hoped to transfer to the photography department at Toho Productions (requiring new actors due to a strike) rather than be an actor (he was the son of a photographer, after all), having served in the Imperial Japanese Army in its aviation division for photography. He made his audition and happened to have it happen in the presence of Kurosawa, who saw it as "frightening as watching a wounded beast trying to break loose. I was transfixed." As for Kurosawa, he had made fair progress as a director ever since he had made his debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Some of the films since that film fell under the spell of the wartime pushes (such as the two films that followed Sugata), with The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail not being allowed for release in 1945 due to scrutiny from sensors until seven years later; No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) and One Wonderful Sunday (1947) were distinct melodramas. Cutting the two together, Mifune made the cut among the roster and proceeded to make his debut with Snow Trail (1947), which had Kurosawa as a co-writer on the script. The label of "yakuza film" is perhaps a bit debatable, considering that films taking a look at the Japanese organized crime syndicate would be firmly more apparent by the 1950s and 1960s (with studios such as Nikkatsu and Toei), but there were various films before this one that dealt with outlaws such as A Diary of Chuji's Travels (1927), and there are various distinct angles to yakuza films, as represented by Branded to Kill (1967) or most notably with Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973). Point is, there are many roads yet to take within films that could be quite fascinating in future dealings.

Kurosawa wrote the film with Keinosuke Uekusa, with the script finding modification upon the realization of just how good Mifune was in a role that was not as large as originally planned. Of course, nothing is ever planned to go the way they are meant to go, whether it be film or with life. For those familiar with world cinema, or actors with plenty of familiar work, Shimura was actually the most prolific actor in a Kurosawa film, for which he appeared in 21 of them in four different decades (which includes such films as the aforementioned Sugata alongside others such as the lead role in Ikaru). He provides a worthy performance that is not upstaged in any way when it comes to acting against Mifune, one with the nerve to stand against the eyes of absurd feudalistic loyalty when it comes to gangsters. Handling the sick and depraved while trying to cope with alcohol is all that matters when it comes to life in a post-war time. He is the title character after all, one with an impulse to do what he must for his patient (black market or not) without thinking of the sense of danger if it comes to falling on the negative side of a yakuza (or worse yet, too much alcohol). The decay is visible on the places that fall prey to yakuza, whether that involves poisonous bog or little inflections of occupied fashions mimicking the West or jazz performed by Shuzuko Kasagi (note: Kurosawa had to be subtle, since the American occupation of 1945-1952 meant having to deal with an American censor board, while Kasagi happened to find popularity as someone who could sing jazz or the boogie-woogie). Mifune is exquisite in raw energy, one that seemed like a name to watch out for even back then. There would be far more opportunities for him to show his prowess and for good reason, because he has the cadence and timing required to make this burrowing man of intensity one to watch with curiosity as a beast that could only change what they want to change, which makes the shaky friendship between him and Shimura all the more involving. Each tower over the other actors, even with Yamamoto and his adversarial presence that outranks the pawns that make up the chess game of gangsters. Of course, since the film moves along with worthy patience for 98 minutes, this doesn't prove a meaningful problem when faced with such a compelling duet of people. The fight at the end is quite exquisite, tragic in its timing that sees a tired man make his final act for a duel that could only end one way. As a whole, the movie finds a quiet message of hope amongst the decay, where the only way to approach the ever-growing sense of life going on regardless of who is there is to just go rationally. It works as a film of urgency, one that forges its own tradition for an audience that surely wanted to see what Kurosawa could provide next.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.