Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Toshiro Mifune furiously embodies swordsman Musashi Miyamoto as he comes into his own in the action-packed middle section of the Samurai Trilogy. Duel at Ichijoji Temple furthers Miyamoto along his path to spiritual enlightenment, as well as further from the arms of the two women who love him: loyal Otsu (Kaoru Yachigusa) and conniving yet tragic Akemi (Mariko Okada). The film also brings him face to face with hordes of rivals intent on cutting him down, especially his legendary rival Kojiro (Koji Tsuruta). The titular climax is one of Japanese cinema’s most rousingly choreographed conflicts, intensified by Jun Yasumoto’s color cinematography and Ikuma Dan’s triumphant score.

Japan
1955
103 minutes
Color
1.33:1
Japanese
Spine #15

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The Samurai Trilogy

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2 Discs

$48.96

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The Samurai Trilogy

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3 Discs

$41.96

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Cast & Credits

Cast

Toshiro Mifune: Musashi Miyamoto
Koji Tsuruta: Kojiro Sasaki
Kaoru Yachigusa: Otsu
Mariko Okada: Akemi
Michiyo Kogure: Lady Yoshino
Mitsuko Mito: Oko
Akihiko Hirata: Seijuro Yoshioka
Daisuke Kato: Toji Gion
Kuroemon Onoe: Takuan
Sachio Sakai: Honiden Matahachi
Yu Fujiki: Denshichiro Yoshioka
Machiko Kitagawa: Kogure
Ko Mihashi: Koetsu Honami
Kokuten Kodo: Priest Nikkan
Eiko Miyoshi: Osugi
Eijiro Tono: Baiken Shishido
Kenjin Iida: Jotaro

Credits

Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Producer: Kazuo Takimura
Screenplay: Tokuhei Wakao
Screenplay: Hiroshi Inagaki
From Hideji Hojo's adaptation of Musashi, by: Eiji Yoshikawa
Cinematography: Jun Yasumoto
Art direction: Makoto Sono
Art direction: Kisaku Ito
Lighting: Shigeru Mori
Sound: Choshichiro Mikami
Music: Ikuma Dan

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Explore

Toshiro Mifune

Actor

Akira Kurosawa once said, “The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression. Toshiro Mifune needed only three feet.” The filmmaker certainly gave Mifune a lot of space, however: over the course of sixteen collaborations, the actor and the director created some of the most dynamic characters ever put on-screen, all marked by an intense physicality and a surprising tenderness. Kurosawa first took note of the handsome actor when Mifune was twenty-seven, during an open audition at Toho Studios; he was soon cast in Snow Trail (1947), a film Kurosawa wrote for director Senkichi Taniguchi. Just one year later, Kurosawa gave him the lead in Drunken Angel as a consumptive gangster. Mifune proceeded to inhabit a variety of deeply felt roles for Kurosawa, including an artist hounded by paparazzi (Scandal); a bandit who may or not be a rapist and murderer (Rashomon); a loose cannon ronin who reluctantly protects a village (Seven Samurai); an elderly patriarch terrified of a second nuclear attack (I Live in Fear); and, probably most iconically, the wily, shiftless samurai Yojimbo. Mifune is known for more than his work with Kurosawa; see him in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Oscar-winning Samurai Trilogy and Masaki Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion. But it is Kurosawa’s greatest films that are most unimaginable without Mifune’s bravado streaking across them like lightning. The pair parted ways professionally in 1965.