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Samurai I
 
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Samurai I

Toshirô Mifune (Actor), Mariko Okada (Actor), Hiroshi Inagaki (Director) | Rated: Unrated | Format: VHS Tape
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

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Toshirô Mifune defines the quintessential samurai in Hiroshi Inagaki's 1954 Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, the first feature in a trilogy based on the epic novel by Eiji Yoshikawa. As in Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai, which appeared the same year, Mifune plays a brash and ambitious peasant who desires fame and power as a swordsman. His dreams of glory in war sour when his army is routed and he becomes hunted by the authorities, but the "tough love" attentions of a kindly but severe monk help him develop from a hot-tempered outlaw to a thoughtful swordsman. Inagaki's somber color epic is very different from the energetic action of Kurosawa's films. The sword fights and battles are practically theatrical in their presentation, staged in long takes that emphasize form and movement over flash and flamboyance. Mifune brings a sad, almost tragic quality to the samurai warrior Musashi Miyamoto, whose dedication proscribes him to a lonely life on the road. Though the film stands well on its own, its stature takes on greater significance as the first act of Inagaki's stately, contemplative epic of the professional and spiritual development of Musashi, whose training and adventures continue in Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple. --Sean Axmaker

Video Details

Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film, and hailed as one of the most visually stirring movies of the 1950s, Samurai I follows the formative years of Musashi Miyamoto, Japan's most famous swordsman, as he goes off to a civil war in search of glory but finds defeat and shame instead. Toshiro Mifune's Miyamoto is spellbinding, and his performance here rivals his work in Seven Samurai. The first film in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy unlocks the beautiful and savage world of the samurai as few other films have.

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Customer Reviews

33 Reviews
5 star:
 (18)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (4)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting film for Criterion to release, Mar 22 2004
By 
Ted "Ted" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: NEW Samurai 1 (DVD) (DVD)
This film (which won an Oscar® in 1955 for best foreign language film) is the first part of a trilogy which is known as the Samurai Trilogy. I find it very impressive for a color film to be released in 1954 at a time where even most American films were still in B&W. At this time, color films were still far more expensive than B&W and Japan was not yet even close to becoming the tech savvy country it is known for being today.

The film itself is based loosely on the true story of 17th century Japanese samurai Musashi Miyamoto. He was considered a hero by the Japanese though I disagree because he participated in the massacre of a Japanese Christian community in Kyushu.

The films have been likened to a Japanese equivalant of "Gone with the Wind" as it is of a woman torn between two lovers during a civil war.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Great movie, lousy DVD, Jan 4 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: NEW Samurai 1 (DVD) (DVD)
The movie is completely wonderful. Unfortunately, the image quality of this DVD is completely unwatchable. Much of the movie is too dark to make out what is happening, day scenes look like night scenes. You are literally better off buying the VHS version of this movie.

Unfortunately, the same is true of the other DVDs in this trilogy. I had to return all three.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Miyamoto Musashi: The Pure Hero, Sep 11 2003
By 
This review is from: NEW Samurai 1 (DVD) (DVD)
This extraordinary 1955 movie tells the tale of a young man named Takezo. Living in Miyamoto village, Takezo is despised by the other villagers because he is a hothead and quite wild. To escape this village he joins the forces of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's son versus the mighty Tokugawa Ieyasu. At the battle of Sekigahara, Toyotomi's forces fall, but Takezo and his friend Matahachi cut on through. They somehow survive their lost cause and make there way to a small hut inhabited by a woman and her teenaged daughter. the daughter comes on to Takezo, but he fends her off. Later after bandits attack, Takezo fights them off with a wooden sword. The mother then comes on to him, but he runs off. The woman then shacks up with Matahachi and the three leave the cabin, so Takezo returns to an empty home. He feels an obligation to go to Miyamoto Village and tell Matahachi's mother and fiance that Matahachi is still alive, but he runs through a guard post so he is hunted down, but not without a fight! This is a great film, that shows the roughness of true samurai, not the polished beings of the Tokugawa period. An extraordinary film, and Priest Takuan is wonderful.
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