Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijôji no Kettô (Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple) (Swords of Doom) poster & wallpaper

Toshiro Mifune, Koji Tsuruta, Mariko Okada

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's fin...( read more  read more... )est school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers. While Otsu waits, Akemi also seeks him, expressing her desires directly. Meanwhile, Takezo is observed by Sasaki Kojiro, a brilliant young fighter, confident he can dethrone Takezo. After leaving Kyoto in triumph, Takezo declares his love for Otsu, but in a way that dishonors her and shames him. Once again, he leaves alone.

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84% liked it

2,734 ratings

Unrated, 104 min.

Directed by: Hiroshi Inagaki

Release Date: July 12, 1955

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Flixster Reviews (146)

  • rubystevens
    October 1, 2009
    rubystevens
    the continuing adventures of crazy takezo, now an accomplished samurai. not quite as good as part 1 tho lovely to look at. all the women are after musashi but he prefers his sword :p
  • hypathio7
    September 23, 2008
    hypathio7
    It starts kind of abruptly with Musashi Miyamoto dueling a guy with a chain and sickle. After he wins, a passing priest plants the idea in his head that he is too strong, that swordsmanship is about chivalry. Musashi spends most of the movie trying to challenge Seijuro, the hea...( read more)d of a samurai school, which has fallen away from the samurai way and mostly consists of bandits. Multiple times he fights a group of this school's students who gang up on him instead of honoring his wishes to duel Seijuro one on one, always besting them. It's hard to see the fights as nearly all of them were shot in nearly complete darkness. He spends some time at a Geisha's house laying low, where the courtesan points out that his search for self-control has lead to a lack of affection. He also fights and kills Denshichiro, Seijuro's brother. Meanwhile, Otsu has still been waiting for Takezo/Musashi to return to her so they could begin a life together, but he now loves his sword more than her. Matahachi has become even more pitifully weak, sitting around singing sad songs and moping, but still trying to fool himself that he is a samurai. Oko has furthered an affair with a bandit from Seijuro's school, who we briefly met in the first part of the trilogy. These two schemers try to force Akemi, Oko's daughter, into a relationship with Seijuro. It has now become unclear who Akemi's father is, Matahachi, Takezo, or the bandit. Either way, Akemi has heard some stories of Takezo, probably from her mother or maybe folk tales, and now believes that she is in love with him. She begins to take after her mother quite a bit. Several characters don't appear anymore after this part of the story: Matahachi, Matahachi's parents, Oko, her bandit boyfriend, or the priest Takuan. The final main character to make an appearance in this part is Kojiro, who is a young samurai building quite a reputation with a new style of fighting. He works with Seijuro and is in favor of upsetting Musashi from his position as the greatest samurai, then when he sees Seijuro's students' lack of honor he becomes a sort of mediator, and finally, dragging Akemi along while watching from a distance, lets Musashi leave with the assurance that they will face each other later.
  • kenstachnik
    March 24, 2008
    kenstachnik
    Beautiful colors, dull story
  • sanjurosamurai
    January 4, 2007
    sanjurosamurai
    a great middle step to one of the best trilogies ever.
  • ih8yahu2002
    June 10, 2008
    ih8yahu2002
    Mifune is the boss, as usual. And the outdoors nature settings are very moody and cinematic. But I got really tired of watching the female characters lie around crying all day. They're incredibly one-dimensional, weak characters.
  • ElCochran90
    September 17, 2009
    ElCochran90
    A worthy sequel and a fairly good continuation to the original story as the second part of a famous Samurai trilogy, this film does everything in its power to try to top the original. It certainly didn't, but it deserves a lot of recognition as a good film within the genre. The r...( read more)easons why I think it didn't top the first part is because whereas the first film focused more on the epic feeling of it, the development of the characters and a certainly wonderful plot, this film had already the advantage of having all of those elements previously elaborated. Fortunately, the whole trilogy was directed by Inagaki, but this time he got rid of the epic feeling of the story and applied it a Kurosawa touch to it, that is, more action-oriented. We even have now a more disciplined and skillful warrior, masterfully interpreted by Toshirô Mifune, than the stubborn and coward one we had before. Although I first thought that the change of filmmaking style and the action-oriented characteristic would ruin this entry, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this is almost as good as the original. Can't wait for the conclusion.

    84/100
  • idacuteGIrLlovely
    April 14, 2009
    idacuteGIrLlovely
    it`s samurai..movie... i like it ...
  • kaospilotsintetizado
    May 7, 2008
    kaospilotsintetizado
    great, as the firs one. great opening and great ending.
  • pinkluver336
    March 14, 2008
    pinkluver336
    lots of big words in the title
  • hopeaddict
    February 10, 2008
    hopeaddict
    Quite well done, though loses a bit for me, having read the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa, that this trilogy was based on. To have truly done the translation justice, it should have been more like six or seven movies. IMHO. Not bad by ANY MEANS, but as a fan of the novel, I could ha...( read more)ve asked for more detail, less of a rushed synopsis.

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