A lot of fun.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A fascinating conclusion to a legendary character. Like the previous film, this one focuses on one particular event of the real life Musashi: the duel at Ganryu Island. In the previous film Musashi undergoes a transformation at the end where he realizes that there is no benefit in seeking to kill his opponents. He has matured and is no longer interested in instigating duel matches. It begins the section on Musashi interestingly with a match by Zen monks where a young arrogant monk challenges anyone in public.Throughout the film Musashi is constantly assessing each situation and trying to choose the humble path. In the first film we catch a glimpse through dialogue that Musashi farmed the land and was unhappy, but now that he has lived his dream as a samurai he returns to the farming life in order to protect a defenseless village. Before returning to farming Musashi lived in a city where he considered becoming an employed samurai but instead avoids it and starts to take up wood crafting Mahayana buddhas. He leaves when he was set to duel with Kojiro Sasaki who had been waiting for Musashi to gain in prominence in order to benefit from his victory in the duel.Musashi postpones the fight for a year and the final scene sequence presents the duel match as the climactic scene. The final scene was masterfully choreographed and a memorable samurai duel on the beach side as the sun rises in the morning. There is not much fighting per se, but the build up of suspense and style is excellent.This film also relies on the continued obsession of Otsu and Akemi with Musashi and his unreturned love. Musashi is truly concerned with virtue and wants to avoid misleading women when his true love remains the life of a samurai. Musashi is tortured by the last scene with Otsu in the second film where he threw himself over her and she rejected him. He felt that he had committed a rash, dishonorable action, while in truth she was simply conflicted. The third film opens up with a monologue by Kojiro Sasaki where his obsession with fame includes the killing of Musashi provides a chilling introduction into his character. Sasaki becomes the paradigm of unfettered fame at all costs. Otsu who followed him out of confusion, finally decides to leave him and seek out Musashi. Again, the women present themselves as strong characters still at the mercy of savage men.There is a sense of flawed portrayals of the female characters. While at times they are multi-dimensional characters, at other times it can come across as soap opera type acting and plot wise. In addition, the story of Musashi as the ideal samurai is difficult to accept given our cynical age, but Musashi is a Japanese folk hero that has been influential to Japanese virtue for over 400 years. Mifune does provide depth to the character, but is limited given the goodness that the character represents within a patriotic context.Nevertheless, the film represents excellent story telling and cinematography that stands the test of time. While the presentation of the ideal samurai will die in the coming years with the birth of the anti-hero by Kurosawa, this is a quintessential trilogy for the historical appreciation of the genre that in a few years would reinvent itself and influence western film making.While the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy is far from historical accuracy, they provide an entertaining introduction to this Japanese character that transcends time.

The first two movies of the series "Miyamoto Musashi" and "Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijôji no kettô" were already ones that was very little wrong with but this movie is basically even a better one, one basically every front thinkable.The movie its story flows way better, which is probably also due to the fact that lots of things finally get wrapped up in this movie and there also is more action to enjoy this time. By todays standards it perhaps is still a pretty slow movie to watch but still the pace and flow within this movie was something I wasn't quite expecting from this movie, especially since the first two movies weren't as fast going or well flowing as this one was. The movie really felt and also looked as if it got made by an entirely different cast and crew this time, while this of course was not the case. Perhaps it was due to the fact that "Miyamoto Musashi" and "Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijôji no kettô" got made almost back-to-back, while before this movie director Hiroshi Inagaki also had go on and directed a totally different movie, "The Lone Journey".The fight sequences do not disappoint within this movie. This is basically what the entire trilogy was building up toward. It's end fight has become quite legendary over the years and is a beautiful looking done one.The whole trilogy definitely benefits from the fact that it got shot in full color. It's natural environments and sets are all beautiful looking and its visual look is actually one of the reasons why the whole trilogy is liked so much and still quite popular to watch, over 50 years later now.More of a 'modern' movie than any of its two predecessor and definitely better flowing with its story and characters, also definitely due to the movie its action. A perfect conclusion for the trilogy.9/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

This was, by far the best of the trilogy and a fine ending. It had less Samurai action that the other two, but it was much more inspiring.Kojiro (Koji Tsuruta) thought himself the best in the land and sought a duel with Musashi (Toshirô Mifune). But Musashi wanted to devote his life to becoming a better person. he went back to the land that he rejected and became a farmer.In the meantime, both Otsu (Kaoru Yachigusa) and Akemi (Mariko Okada) managed to find him. Can you imagine that scene? Feeling rejected, Akemi is made to betray Musashi to the brigands. The effort fails and Musashi accepts the duel with Kojiro.The duel itself was magnificent but short. It was a fitting end to a film that featured outstanding cinematography and a compelling story of the drive to perfection.

I just don't get why in Japanese movies women are just really 2 different characters. They are either A) the incredibly weak woman that would rather die than be without her love when she doesn't even really have a reason to love this guy or B) the conniving backstabbing evil of the world people. Otsu is A, all the other women in this movie are B with Akemi being both A & B. Why the heck does Otsu keep stalking this guy from town to town? Honey, you've been surving pretty well on your own all your life and you're pretty hot for an Asian chick, I'm sure some guy would take pretty good care of you without making you stalk him all over Japan.The romance is weak, very weak, but this is movie from the 50s we're talking about. Nothing in the first two movies really setup why these women are in love with Musashi, they just are cause he's Musasi who happens to be the main character, we're suppose to love him too and not question what makes these women psycho.Musashi's motivations are weak too along with Kojiro's. Why travel around and murder people in town after town when good looking women are inviting you to stay and have a good time? What else is there in life, really??? Even despite being annoyed by the bad romance scenes with DRAG on and on, and everyone in feudal Japan being murdering serial killers this movie is still pretty darn entertaining, and the actions are darn good. Its not close up face shots during the action, instead its well layed out camera work that displays Mifume's physical prowess. The guy is quick. The final duel is a thing of beauty, and is copied by every horrible japanimation cartoon on the face of the planet these days. I hate japanimation.