directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
screenplay by Tokuhei Wakao and Hiroshi Inagaki
based on Hideji Hojo’s adaptation of the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa (1935–9)

Criterion #15.

I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve received since my post about Musashi Miyamoto begging me please to review the sequel. Conveniently enough, said sequel is the very next release in The Criterion Collection, and I have just watched it, so I am well equipped to meet that request. Nonetheless, those eager correspondents, if any, are going to be disappointed, because I firmly maintain that I do not write “reviews” on this here site. Sorry kids, but like the song says, I can’t be your Owen Gleiberman. My self-assignment is simply to write “responses,” or more precisely, to give an entry the same title as whatever movie I have just seen, and then put something in the body. The rest, dear reader, is up to you.

Or is it?

In any case, luckily for y’all I have fairly conservative tastes as a blogeur and the chances are slim that I will go all avant-garde and not mention the movie once. Though I am gearing up to do an apologia about how I refuse to watch one of the movies. Aficionados of the list will know what I’m talking about.

OKAY, IT’S ICHIJOJI TIME!!!

Let me and google break “続宮本武蔵 一乗寺の決闘” down for you.
続 = “Zoku,” a prefix meaning “continuation” or “sequel.”
宮本武蔵 = “Miyamoto Musashi,” ah-DUH. See how it’s big and bold on the title card?
一乗寺 = “Ichijōji” (or Ichijō-ji”), the name of a real Buddhist temple
の = “no,” a basic particle that here is apparently a sort of possessive, like “of”
決闘 = “kettō,” meaning “duel” (made of characters meaning “decision” and “fight”)

(Oh, except wait, even though that’s how it’s spelled in absolutely every reference source online (though some of them omit the の), that’s not how it’s spelled on the title card. The last character is different, see? 斗, not 闘. This is a bit of a stumper for my online resources. Google translate is still willing to tell me that 決斗 means “duel,” but the transliteration site says that 決斗 is not “kettō” but “ketsu to,” and none of the dictionaries are having it. Also, I see that the preview for this movie actually has the character 閗 in that place, which if you look closely seems to be a sort of compromise.)

(Oh hey, and look at that, the first character is different too. 續 instead of 続. The sources tell me it’s just a lesser-used variant of the same. Apparently, in Japanese, the exact characters aren’t considered a essential part of titles. Or maybe something else is going on. I give up. In case you didn’t know, I DON’T SPEAK JAPANESE.)

So anyway, we (probably) have Zoku Miyamoto Musashi Ichijōji no kettō, which is something lke Musashi Miyamoto continued: Ichijōji Duel.” Criterion calls it Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple, which is fine, all things considered, though I still think they could have manned up and admitted that this trilogy is called Musashi Miyamoto and not Samurai. As mentioned last time. I’m gonna let that go, I swear.

So far, so good, my lucky readers!

If you are a lover of samurai films, you will know this film well as “the one where at the beginning he fights a guy with a chain and at the end he goes up against like 80 guys by himself.” The path between those two points is wobbly. Where the first film felt pleasantly simplistic, this one trips over its feet a little. Perhaps the problem is that the source material is overlong and overcomplicated and the task of adaptation has been occasionally fumbled.

Here is what it was like to watch this movie:

“Since when does that other woman also love Musashi desperately, and why? What is the significance of this fighting school, and why is he so dead-set on dueling the master? Is he really actually killing all these guys just to hone his skills? Is he still an outlaw? What is driving him personally? Are we supposed to see him as sensitive or insensitive? Are we supposed to feel sorry for the pathetic, cowardly former friend, or is he comic relief? Or is he actually supposed to be despicable? Does the priest want the woman to become a nun? Who was the Yoda-like guy at the beginning and why didn’t he ever reappear? Is that kid really Musashi’s apprentice or not? Why on earth does the woman rebuff Musashi when he finally tries to kiss her? What’s the deal with the mysterioso nemesis guy? Other than establishing himself for the audience so that he can duel Musashi in the next movie, what the hell is he doing? And don’t any of these samurai, like, own land or something? Didn’t being a samurai entail something beyond an endless Street Fighter II competition for fighting supremacy and soulful awesomeness?”

The answer to the last question is, “uh, I don’t think so, at least not in this movie.” Just now did some Wikipedia reading to understand what the deal is with samurai, and I see that, okay, for a time they really were sort of rogue would-be warlords who roamed around obsessing over honor and challenging each other to monster duels. Something just feels strangely untethered about that as a milieu. In westerns, there’s always something at stake — a town or a ranch or a woman or something — around which the duels crop up. The plot of Seven Samurai was about a town; that made sense to me. In detective noir there’s some client’s money that makes the thing go — the moral code, the betrayals etc. are the dust that gets stirred up by the plot. Musashi, by contrast, lives in a MacGuffinless universe. He is in it to win it and there is no ‘it’. He must fight and scowl and concentrate because that is his destiny, period.

Presumably there is some final epic duel — don’t quote me on this, but I think it just might be a Duel at Ganryu Island — beyond which lies the state of true mastery, which having been attained will allow Musashi to do something or other. But my guess is the movie will end at that point. If there is any doing in this universe, it is not our concern. These are movies about what a man will be, played out in as little context as possible. Historically accurate or not, that’s some pretty stylized subject matter, and I think your mileage will depend on how much that corresponds with your personal worldview. It’s not very close to mine. The moral question of how to be seems fairly obvious, to me, so I prefer movies that are about people figuring out what to do.

Based on youtube and amazon comments, the people who love these movies seem to be people who are moved by the idea of pursuing a moral code, and also people who are moved by heroes, heroes, heroes. Something about the appeal of the “hero” paradigm escapes me. I like a protagonist as much as the next guy, but who is a hero, really? He’s a protagonist praised for exactly what you don’t have in common with him. (Don’t Harry Potter fans realize that they’re all filthy muggles?) Musashi has an incredible talent for swordfighting. Okay, well, I totally can’t relate to that, so how about you tell me if he’s a sympathetic person. Oh, really, we’re done here?

Luckily for Musashi he’s played by Toshiro Mifune, who obviously has a solid, appealing screen presence (though it’s still an effort for me not to constantly be weighing him skeptically against the ridiculously immoderate praise heaped on him by that Seven Samurai commentary guy). Liking a character because he has a solid, appealing screen presence is much easier for me than liking him because he is a great fighter. He and the other actors fill out their tenuous characters with big, clean, obvious performances.

The photography is smart and often very attractive, with frequent and effective use of old-fashioned, well-choreographed camera movement — several lovely moments of lateral tracking through multilayered scenery. And the color, as mentioned last time, is a splendid period piece in itself. But this film seemed to me to be in significantly worse shape than the previous one — the colors are less intense and the image is generally muddier, with occasional ghosty edges. That means a lot when you’re watching for the colors above all else! Also, look how much less pretty the title screen was! Netflix told me I wouldn’t like this one quite as much as the previous, and as usual, it was right.

Still, a pleasant sort of movie to watch without interest. It seems to bring along with it the cozy fact that it is late at night, you are flipping channels, and this broad, earnest thing is just what happened to be on.

Here’s your Criterion Collection track 15: the main title. Same composer, same theme, same arrangement. Apart from the exciting trills at the beginning and end, this is almost exactly the opening cue from the previous movie, now unencumbered by sound effects so you can hear the whole thing. I know this will seem pretty redundant coming on the heels of the last track… but so does the movie so it’s only appropriate. And hey, it’s a better recording. In any case it’s our only real option.

P.S. My favorite subtitle: