The end of the trilogy! No, not The Lord of the Rings, although I'm anxiously awaiting this December, you bet. This is the final film in Hiroshi Inagaki's trilogy about a samurai learning to become one. Unfortunately, I liked the second film in the trilogy better than the third, which is odd because second films can be more boring. You've been introduced to the world in the first film and now just want to get to the conclusion. The second film was hopping, and in this film the pace slows down. Which parallels Miyamoto Musashi's development as a samurai, but revealed more of the inconsistencies of the film to me. I particularly liked night battles suddenly changing into daytime battles. I don't think that was meant to be stylistic. And the melodrama is overly thick at times as the two women who love the samurai vie for him in different ways. It's also much easier in this film to come to the conclusion that these two women are off their rockers. One is simply a girl gone bad who can't get Musashi out of her head. The other is a good girl, but gives Musashi conflicting ideas of how she feels. The alarm bells should be going off in his head! I realize this film is from a different time and a different culture. That doesn't make it less irritating, though. All in all, it's a decent trilogy, for the cinematography, for the change from black-and-white to crystal clear color, and last but not least for watching Toshirô Mifune enact the transformation of Miyamoto Musashi from idiot boy to controlled, skillful samurai.
original title: Miyamoto Musashi Kanketsuhen: Kettô Ganryûjima
year: 1956
length: 115 min.
rating: 3.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049710/combined
Sunday, August 24, 2003
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