Toshiro Mifune plays Takezo, a farmer with a bittered family life who leaves his village with his best friend, Matahachi, in search of adventure and glory. The side they start fighting on loses and Takezo and Matahachi are the only few left alive from the skirmish. Within the post stages of the feudal war, Takezo's idea of the world changes as he is confronted with the many obstacles that will tear him up inside as a Man, but will in turn benefit his understandings and his learning's of becoming a Samurai. This is the first chapter in the story of the legendary Musashi Miyomoto.

Review: I'll tell you the reason why every cowboy movie ever created is an utter rip off of every Samurai movie ever made:

-Toshiro Mifune. Bar none.

He is the Japanese Clint Eastwood mixed with every piece of raw grit John Wayne is known for and the rough toughness that Yul Brenner wishes he was. Nix that. It's the other way around. Everybody wants to be Toshiro Mifune.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto is an exquisite masterpiece, photographed in splendor and directed with ferocious vision. It's amazing to see a movie of this period (1954) to have such an amazing production value outside of old Hollywood. From the ravaged scenes of the battlegrounds to the moonlit sword fights in the woods, the lighting and the cinematography was used to provide the picture with a distinct feel of warring Japan in a period of transition.

Mifune's Takezo shadowed practically all the performances. Even though Rentaro Mikuni's Matahachi was able to hold a match to Mifune, his scenes only lasted for the first third of the movie forfeiting any real chance to strike a chord with the audience. Albeit, Karao Yachigusa's performance of the lovely Otsu was priceless. Playing the initial fiancé of Matahachi to becoming the love interest of Takezo's was absolutely and utterly precious. With her naive smile along with her lemon-shine face, she was able to offer the believability that one man would go to the ends of the world for her. As we see in the next installation of the Samurai series, we'll see a more blooming Yachigusa as the love unfolds between the two.

Although the story evolves around the character of Takezo, some may find it difficult to keep up with the many side characters that appear within his travels, as they drop out as soon as they are introduced. Besides Takuan (Kuroemon Onoe), the priest who plays a prominent role into turning Takezo into Musashi, the other supporting characters such as Akemi (Mariko Okada) and Oko (Mitsuko Mito) were obviously means of segwaying into the separation of Matahachi and Takezo. As a stand-alone feature, this would be cumbersome, but within the context of the trilogy, all of these characters come back around later to tie up loose ends within the series.

For those spoiled with modern sword fighting, choreographed wire-fu and aerial combat by famous martial artists, then Samurai I may not be your cup of tea. All of the duels and clan fights were created for the sense of realism, rawness and rude ability of a swordsman. They happen slow, unorganized and lack the aestheticism of a ballet. But the real powers here are the emotional strokes, felt and heard cinematically through the performance of Toshiro Mifune.