In the fourth installment, Musashi's potentially greatest opponent Kojiro jumps in and out of the story at the oddest and most coincidental moments. As his great love Otsu has succumbed to madness. Musashi then sets off to beat the functionaries of a treacherous clan in an arranged duel. 73 against one. Boastful Kojiro watches, secure in the knowledge that only he is a worthy opponent.
Direction
Uchida's geometric chaos—bodies arranged like lethal calligraphy.
Practical Effects
Real steel, real sweat, real 128 minutes of punishment.
Acting
Nakamura's thousand-yard stare could cut you cleaner than any blade.
Director
Tomu Uchida
Kinnosuke Nakamura
Miyamoto Musashi / Takezo
Wakaba Irie
Otsu
Isao Kimura
Hon'iden Matahachi
Chieko Naniwa
Osugi
Satomi Oka
Akemi
Shinjirō Ehara
Seijuro Yoshioka
Mikijiro Hira
Yoshioka Denshichiro
Ken Takakura
Sasaki Kojiro
Chōichirō Kawarasaki
Kichijiro Hayashi
Kei Tani
Akakabe Yasoba
Kusuo Abe
Fuchikawa Goroku
Chieko Higashiyama
Strange Beauty
Eijirō Tōno
Haiya
Masao Oda
Kichin Innkeeper
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 73-against-one duel was historically documented but Uchida exaggerated the choreography—actual combat was reportedly more chaotic and shorter. The film's balletic violence is pure cinema.
This was the fourth of five films in Uchida's Musashi cycle, released during the chambara boom when samurai films dominated Japanese box offices before the genre's violent turn in the 1970s.
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