Miyamoto Musashi, 2: Showdown at Hannyazaka Heights
(Miyamoto Musashi: Hannyazaka no ketto, 1962)

Uchida Tomu

Japan

110 min, color, Japanese (English subtitles)

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

The unnecessary remake of Yoshikawa's awesome novel continues with the second installment in which former firebrand Takezo emerges from the Himeji Castle after three years of intense contemplation and philosophical study (getting a Ph.D. then was so much easier). The long road to becoming the legendary master swordsman Musashi has begun. Unfortunately, the journey is not going to have too many surprises: Musashi is already a pretty decent fighter.

Musashi follows Takuan into the world	The first of many fleeting meetings with Otsu

The first order of business is to visit the bridge where he told poor Otsu to wait on the off chance that he might show up. Now that he does actually come, he is not exactly happy to see her. Otsu is the woman who puts lie to the famous saying that absence makes the heart go yonder. In her case, it only makes it go fonder. Ex-fiance Matahachi is all but forgotten and now she pines for the manly charms of Musashi. It is her great misfortune that the guy seems impervious to the urges that conjugal visits are for in prison. Three years with nary a female in sight, and he manages to walk away. At least he scribbled his frustrations on the bridge parapet.

"I will follow you anywhere"	Yoshioka eyes Akemi with ungentlemanly intent

I do not mean to belittle the sadness of the event, of course. In fact, one can say that Yoshikawa's entire point is that being larger than life in the way Musashi resolved to be is not for the faint of heart... or the merely human among us. Sacrifices must be made, yes. But for some obscure reason these always seem to involve those who Musashi holds dearest to his heart. Well, as dear as can be after himself and his sword. It may strike one as a bit flippant to mortgage one's existence on perfecting the way of the sword. But with the Tokugawa peace obliterating any chance of martial glory, this seems to have been one way out for the frustrated heroes in waiting.

Oko and Matahachi's marital bliss	Osugi's pathetic attempt at vengeance

Musashi is as flat a character as a pancake on asphalt after going over it with a tandem vibratory roller. As Takezo the man had wild dreams and now he seems to be placed into contemplative mode by the sight of his own shadow. There is some of the usual inane commentary about the indomitable spirit that apparently is obvious to everyone just from his posture, but basically Musashi wanders about in search of people to beat up on under the guise of training. To his credit, he refuses to cross swords with Osugi when she finally locates him, but that's about it in the credits column. In the debits column, we have him murdering a priest, letting a kid tag along on his dangerous journey, and generally indulging in mayhem against assorted out of work ronin. And then he is unhappy with Priest Nikkan (Tsukigata Ryunosuke) when he uses rough and ready justice to clean up Nara!

And then there were two: Musashi and Jotaro	The menacing Nikkan tending to his garden

You also gotta love the deep thoughts by Nikkan regarding Musashi's fighting prowess: "You are too strong," he chides him. I am not well versed in Buddhism and even less in its incomprehensible Zen variety, so I admit to not quite getting the point. Unless he was just echoing Takuan's earlier injunction against random violence that Takezo seemed so fond of. Musashi is no Takezo, of course. His violence is decidedly non-random, but people perish nonetheless. Either Nikkan was none too happy about that or else he was trying to tell Musashi that he attracts violence by his demeanor. Or maybe he just meant that Musashi should put the violence in service to a higher calling?

Dead with one blow in two seconds	You are too strong

In the end, Nikkan is going to do that for him. When Musashi refuses to go along with some highway robbery scheme that a bunch of disgruntled ronin put together, these guys decide to wreak revenge on him (unclear what for, but oh well). Nikkan then uses this opportunity to play a complicated double cross game in which he actually sides with the local magistrate to enforce the laws against brigandage. Or whatever. This is all told in a 10-second revelation that is news both to us and Musashi. And here I was thinking that all Buddhist priests in Japan are as dissolute and evil as those monks from Mount Hiei that gave Kiyomori so much trouble.

No turning back from the path of the samurai	Musashi in his first epic encounter

This whole business with the showdown at Hannyazaka displaces the ostensible main part of the plot which I naively thought would be Musashi's epic confrontation with the members of the Yoshioka school, but I guess this is left for the next installment. Very little is seen of Akemi here as well, although we do get the sense that Yoshioka Seijiro (Ebara Shinjiro) tried to put the moves on her in a way that she did not welcome. Oko and Matahachi are still rehashing the "I hate you more than you hate me" song with the ever-popular refrain sung in duet, "You ruined my life." A very weak second film with a brief explosion of violence at the very end that is too fleeting to be redeeming.

The ambush at Nara	First he kills them, then he writes stones for them

After the decent quality of the first bootleg DVD, I had high hopes for this one too. Unfortunately, even though it is letterboxed at the OAR 2.35:1, the video is sourced from some godawful VHS tape. The image is unstable, the colors have a decidedly green/orange cast, and there is way too much edge enhancement. In fact, it is barely watchable, which probably made me crankier than usual too. The non-removable English subtitles are actually quite decent, so if I ever get my hands on a good unsubtitled print, I will extract them and discard this DVD-R.

April 10, 2006