#14: INAGAKI, Hiroshi: The Samurai Trilogy / Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954)

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INAGAKI, Hiroshi: (Japan)
Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto [1954]
Spine #14
DVD/Blu-ray


In the first part of the epic Samurai Trilogy, Toshiro Mifune thunders onto the screen as the iconic title character. When we meet him, Miyamoto is a wide-eyed romantic, dreaming of military glory in the civil war that is ravaging the seventeenth-century countryside. Twists of fate, however, turn him into a fugitive. But he is saved by a woman who loves him and a cunning priest who guides him to the samurai path. Though the opening installment of a series, this film, lushly photographed in color, stands on its own, and won an Academy Award for the best foreign-language film of 1955.

93 minutes
Color
Monaural
in Japanese
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2004
Director/Writers


From Hideji Hôjô’s adaptation of the novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.
Screenplay by Tokuhei Wakao and Hiroshi Inagaki.
Inagaki was 49 when he directed Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto.

The Film

Aa

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

 The Booklet

DVD: Four-page leaflet featuring an essay by Bruce Eder.
Blu-ray: 24-page booklet featuring essays by Stephen Prince and William Scott Wilson.

Commentary

None.

Interviews

With translator and historian Wilson about the real-life Musashi Miyamoto, the inspiration for the hero of the films.
Documentary 1

Documentary 2

Documentary 3

Controversial altered ending

DVD: Original theatrical trailer
Blu-ray: Trailers
Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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