The Criterion Collection

Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Edition no. 15

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This title is also available in the following box set: The Samurai Trilogy

Release Date: Tuesday, 18 May 2004
Country of Release: USA
MSRP: $29.95

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Licensor Information

Toho Co.

Directed by: Hiroshi Inagaki

Featuring: Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Kaoru Yachigusa, Mariko Okada, Michiyo Kogure, Mitsuko Mito, Akihiko Hirata, Daisuke Kato, Kuroemon Onoe, Sachio Sakai, Kokuten Kodo

Hiroshi Inagaki's acclaimed Samurai Trilogy is based on the novel that has been called Japan's Gone with the Wind. This sweeping saga of the legendary seventeenth-century samurai Musashi Miyamoto (powerfully portrayed by Toshiro Mifune) plays out against the turmoil of a devastating civil war. The Trilogy (whose first part won an Academy Award®) follows Musashi's odyssey from unruly youth to enlightened warrior. In the second and most violent installment, Duel at Ichijoji Temple, Musashi beats a samurai armed with a chain-and-sickle and is later set upon by eighty samurai disciples-orchestrated by the sinister Kojiro-while the two women who love him watch helplessly.

Year: 1955
Time: 103 min.