Musashi continues his adventures in search of inner peace, learning to be “one” with himself, and is chased by about three women for a piece of him, as well as eighty samurai who are trying to kill him. Just a normal day’s work.

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple continues where the Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto left off. The opening is more action and more immediate than that of the first film. Musashi has already arranged for a duel with Baikman, a samurai that uses a sickle and chain to fight, and thus begins the Duel at Dawn. During this, we get to see Musashi’s newly learnt two swords technique. The battle is watched by a young boy, who lives in the house near where the first duel takes place. After the battle, the boy follows Musashi around, wishing to be his disciple, it’s really a throwaway character, which adds little to appeal to Musashi’s humanity.

There are many subplots and characters that cross paths. Otsu from the first film crosses paths with Akemi, and they both confess they love for a man, who happens to be Musashi. When they meet again, Akemi professes she will chase him forever, and disheartens Otsu. Add to this, a geisha who hides Musashi until battle, falls for his charm, where it comes from nobody knows, however, she falls in love with him and Musashi being himself rejects her advances.

The man who’s trying to win Akemi’s affection is the head, Seijuro, of the Yoshikawa School, and the target for Musashi’s duel. His men are trying to avoid a battle with Musashi, and instead are trying to assassinate him in order to avoid a duel with their leader. However, they don’t seem very good at it.

Much of the film is understated, particularly in the fight sequences. Music is barely used, if at all, and fights are mostly consisted of war cries and grunts

Further more, we have the Mutahachi’s mother trying to kill Otsu and Musashi, and they happen to bump into Mutahachi himself who has stolen a scroll from a dying man who was mistaken for Musashi and killed. Mutahachi has taken the scroll for himself, which certifies that a samurai named Kojiro has succeeded from a particular samurai school. He lies to the mother, saying his skills will allow him to open a school of his own. Otsu happens to be chasing after Musashi, when she bumps into Mutahachi, to whom she confesses her love for Musashi. He calls her a slut and tries to kill, bereft of the fact that he married someone else and tried to rape Akemi first. Twathead.

It is only when they’re confronted by Kojiro, who happens to be coming from finding out the ambush prepared by Yoshikowa’s men for Musashi that he bumps into Otsu, who’s running away from Mutahachi and his mother. When confronted as to who he is, Kojiro laughs as Mutahachi claims that he is Kojiro and the master of a sword technique. When presented with the reality, the coward Mutahachi yields. Kojiro himself wishes to duel Seijuro, and also Musashi, and upon seeing Musashi in action, warns Seijuro not to confront Musashi as he will lose.

When Seijuro’s brother returns from a trip, he finds out the school’s shame in trying to kill Musashi and decides to confront him on his own. Although the duel is called Duel of Snowy Fall (or something like that), there’s actually little in the way of snow that is presented. Even with his brother’s death, Seijuro is wanting to fight, but aided by his puppets he is stopped from doing so. After discovering Akemi only wishes to be loved by Musashi, Seijuro has his way with her, against her will and decides to kill Musashi.

However, a plan has been concocted that will involve eighty samurai ambushing Musashi in a bid to kill him. It’s a very interesting spectacle, as Musashi uses intelligence over brawn to beat his opponents. In the end, he is confronted by Seijuro himself, and chooses not to kill him after flashbacks of comments made to him about his character. It adds wisdom to his attributes, and this there is no death between Musashi and Seijuro.

Even Musashi succumbs to his savage desires over Otsu, and repulses both Otsu and himself at his behaviour which is barbaric. It is then that he renounces women from his life, and chooses to live only the life of a samurai warrior.

Mifune continues a fairly decent performance, and we see a development in his character, however, I did notice a serious weakness in the man to be able to keep their desires under control. In this sense, all the men are as bad as each other, however, I guess only Musashi restrains himself from indulging even though he does attempt it. It’s an interesting character flaw present in all the men.

The cinematography in this film again comes up trumps. The locations, and the onset recreations of locations are wonderfully expansive and gritty. There seems to be a more heavy darkness about the film, than the first one. Both in terms of plot, and also the actual image that you see on screen. Much of the action takes place at dawn, or in night time settings, with little in the way taking place in the open fields in daylight, as per the first film. The darker undertones of the film perhaps reflect the cinematography, and vice versa, complementing each other, yet adding to a certain misery that is present in the story in the sequel.

There are many subplots and characters that cross paths. Otsu from the first film crosses paths with Akemi, and they both confess they love for a man, who happens to be Musashi

There are some interesting plot developments, and some new characters introduced that will surely be concluded in the third and final chapter of the Inagaki saga of Musashi films. I am particularly interested to see if Kojiro duels with Musashi, and whether Musashi finally finds peace and decides what he wishes to do, add to which what happens to the coward Mutahachi, and the two ladies who will chase Musashi till the ends of the Earth. Suffice to say, as a middle story for this trilogy, it does a very good job of creating a cliffhanger and suggesting a complete conclusion of all the missing pieces in the puzzle.

Much of the film is understated, particularly in the fight sequences. Music is barely used, if at all, and fights are mostly consisted of war cries and grunts. In particular, the one on one duels are quite enchanting, the shift of movement from offence to defence is really well captured, and the quickness of the sword equally tempered to provide some essence of not just a physical duel, but one of mental strategy as well.

There is one sequence which is quite interesting, when Musashi is to meet the eighty samurai head on, and instead of taking the main route, decides to go through the marshes and swaps instead. There are several long shots edited together, and the whole thing last for a reasonable amount of time, playing to some understated soundtrack, with the only visible on screen the character of Musashi going from left to right to reach his goal.

Whereas the first film dealt with Musashi’s development from tough fighter to samurai, he has not quite reached the level of samurai, however we do see him develop. It’s obvious in the final film he will achieve greater progression and will have mastered his two sword technique, what we don’t know is anyone will finally treat him as a samurai. Every person of wisdom or comment as referred to him as a tough warrior, but never a samurai and it seems Musashi’s goal in life to achieve this before he can return home.

Verdict: A sequel that serves as more than just a filler, providing thrills, action and a developing story and characters.