"Miyamoto Musashi" (1955): by Hiroshi Inagaki, starring Torshiro Mifune. This is an EPIC story of one man who sets out to travel far and wide throughout the land and himself in search of his identity and purpose. It has something of the feel of Herman Hesse's book "Siddhartha", but with Samurai battle scenes
(no, it is NOT a silly martial arts film). Having won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1955, this is 97 minutes of serious life dramas, with the priorities being Japanese, of course. One must think that with less than a decade having passed since Japan's defeat in WWII, this film's considerations (set in the 16th century) - about identity, goals, love, war, status, and true purpose - were nearly unavoidable. Beautiful photography, good color (considering the era), music that occasionally over-swelled the scene, believable sets, and again, a serious story line, make this one worth seeing. This will sound odd, but I found lots of parallels to the early Marlon Brando film, "The Wild One'". Feel free to disagree.
Review of Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto
