Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Set in early seventeenth-century Japan, this action drama follows Takezo, a young man from a humble background who goes to war alongside his friend Matahachi, hoping to win status and renown as a warrior. The two fight on the losing side, and their defeat turns them into fugitives rather than heroes. They take shelter with a widow and her daughter, and the choices made there set the friends on separate paths: Matahachi drifts away from his betrothed, Otsu, while Takezo returns to his village to a hostile reception. A Buddhist monk, Takuan, becomes his mentor and helps him take the name Musashi Miyamoto, setting him on the road toward the discipline of a samurai.

The film is Hiroshi Inagaki's 1954 adaptation of the Musashi Miyamoto story, the first entry in a trilogy. Inagaki directed it between I Am a Bodyguard and Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple, and wrote the screenplay with Tokuhei Wakao; Kazuo Takimura produced it for TOHO. Toshirō Mifune plays the title role, with Rentaro Mikuni, Mariko Okada, Kurôemon Onoe, Kaoru Yachigusa and Mitsuko Mito among a credited cast of twenty-eight. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.2 out of 10 from 216 votes.