#15: Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple
Hey buddies!
Welcome back :) This week my anxiety has been at 1,000. HBU? A friendly reminder that it is okay to suck at coping even if you are great at it most of the time. Sometimes ya just can’t. You can always begin again.
9/15 FUND RACIAL JUSTICE/ACTION ITEM:
By July 31st this year, we had lost more trans people to murder than all of 2019. This week, I want to share an organization called G.L.I.T.S. which stands for Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society. G.L.I.T.S. works with all trans sex workers, but understands the specific difficulties/barriers/dangers to Black trans and GNC sex workers.
They offer a wide array of services and support including housing, education for service providers, advocacy, and healthcare.
And, for my Pburgh friends, one of the board members is local activist and founder of SisTers PGH, Ciora Thomas!
You may donate to G.L.I.T.S. here.
9/15 MOVIE BY A BLACK FILMMAKER REC:
I have not seen this movie, but! I am adding here as a reminder to myself. It’s called Sweetheart, directed by JD Dillard. It’s a horror movie about a young woman stranded on a desert island while a sea monster stalks her. Helloooo. Available to rent/buy on YouTube and Amazon.
#15: Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple
Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Country: Japan
Year: 1955
Runtime: 103 minutes
Language: Japanese
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
Well folks, we pick up right where we left off! Musashi (FKA Takezo) is roaming the countryside looking for enlightenment. The intro subtitle calls the Priest (you know the one who captured Takezo a BUNCH of times and hung him from a tree and then kept him in an attic) his “mentor.” HMMMMM.
Musashi stumbles upon a young boy with a sword. He tries to tell the young boy to leave because he’s going to be dueling a man there soon, but the boy refuses. Baiken (Eijirō Tōno), another samurai, shows up for the battle and he and Musashi get RIGHT to it. Baiken is not fucking around as he spins a ball on a chain.
He catches Musashi’s arm with it, but Musashi wins with a quick stab to the gut. Huzzah!
As he leaves the battleground, an old man tells Musashi that although he’s a skilled swordsman, he is not a true samurai because he is not “mentally relaxed” (join the club, bub), not chivalrous, and that he will remain “just” a tough man, even going on to tell him he’s too strong. This is SUCH A SURPRISING ANGLE and begs the question, “do I know what a samurai is?”
He lets the kid, whose name is Jōtarō (Kenjin Iida), an orphan, join him on his trek but warns the kid that he is just a student, too. Two things: 1) we love a humble queen and 2) remember how Musashi left his GF on a bridge when she asked to join him and now this stranger boy is somehow FINE to join?
Anyway, they look up in the sky and there’s cartoon birds, which Josh and I were blown away by because it is 1954 and we don’t know anything about cartoons. It also begs the question...is this a bird movie?
In Kyoto, Otsu is literally waiting...on the bridge...that Musashi left her on...trying to sell fans. This poor woman even stops a man who looks like him.
Let’s do a quick recap of the love quadrangle from last week’s Maury ep-I mean, Samurai I: Otsu was engaged to a man named Matahachi until he went off to war with his friend Takezo. After being wounded in battle, he and Takezo stumbled upon two women in an abandoned village: a mother (Okō) and daughter (Akemi). After Okō falsely accuses Takezo of trying to rape her, Matahachi ends up marrying her and Akemi falls in unrequited love with Takezo. Later, Otsu receives a letter from Okō telling her she’s married Matahachi and she should move on. She does! ...with Matahachi’s friend, Takezo, who is now known as the samurai Musashi, who leaves her on a bridge. OKAY!
A lady stops by to ask Otsu if she’s waiting for a man because apparently it’s written ALL over her face. The woman is Akemi!! Akemi shares with Otsu that she is ALSO longing for a man. They tell each other they will pray for the other, neither of them knowing they’re waiting for the same man. I LOVE THIS MOVIE I yelled.
Akemi on the bridge, talking to Otsu
As they’re talking, a man runs up and tells Akemi the professor is waiting. At the local martial arts school that they live at, Okō (the mom who married Matahachi) is now seemingly with another man, Tōji (Daisuke Katō). They joke about how much money they’ll make pimping out Akemi and Tōji calls Okō a bad mother and they laaaughh and laugh. This is what today, I think, we would call sex trafficking.
Turns out Matahachi is still around, though, because he’s in another room playing an instrument, singing sadly to himself. Very divorced dad vibe. Tōji asks Okō when she’s going to kick Matahachi out.
At the martial arts school, the Yoshioka School, Musashi is doing a guest spot! He duels with the students, kicking every single one of their asses in a row. He requests a duel with the owner and professor of the school, Seijūrō Yoshioka (Akihiko Hirata). Seijūrō also happens to be the dude that Akemi is currently being abused by.
Okō’s new man, Tōji, is soooo shady because he tells all the students behind his back that Seijūrō is not good enough to win against Musashi. He storms Musashi’s empty room where he finds a note saying Seijūrō needs to post a time and place for them to meet for the duel. In person,Tōji hypes Seijūrō up, telling him that Musashi is not even worth fighting. Great friend.
Soon, Akemi puts the pieces together and figures out that Musashi is the man she loved, Takezo. She tells Matahachi, who is STUNNED. He literally can’t believe it. Okō and Matahachi, who still hate each other, fight again about how he’s not a samurai and Takezo is and they honestly...they both just suck.
Musashi gets his sword serviced at a sword place (not a euphemism), but the man refuses to sharpen it because it is a murder weapon. Understandable. Musashi is super offended, leaves, but then comes back, this time asking nicely.
“Will you kindly repolish my cruel soul,” he asks. He’s learning humility! Turns out there’s only one sword polishing master up to the task, a man named Kōetsu (Kō Mihashi). Kōetsu has just finished polishing another sword, whose owner Musashi wants to meet, a master swordsman named Sasaki Kojirō (Kōji Tsuruta).
In a park, a man is attacked by a bunch of men with swords. Matahachi, being a sad dad just wandering around, helps him and as he’s dying the man asks him to take a package and deliver it to...Sasaki Kojirō. Ya know that feeling when things in a movie are heating up because you heard one name two times in a row? That’s what’s happening now. REMEMBER THIS.
Seijūrō (the owner/teacher at the martial arts school) confronts Akemi about her loving Musashi and then he rapes her. This poor girl really cannot catch any sort of break. It’s awful.
As Tōji and Okō smoke the skinniest pipe I’ve ever seen, Akemi enters. She stares daggers at her mother, who deserves it completely, because she heard her being raped and did nothing.
As she’s packing up her fans on the bridge at night, Otsu and Musashi finally meet again. This is where we find out that she waited for him for three years and then traveled for a year searching for him. He apologizes, tells her he’s missed her, dreamed of her every night, and he wants to settle down with her in the mountains. But he’s torn, you guys. He says he’s wiser and greedier now. He can’t have both her and his sword, it turns out.
So, in college, my long distance boyfriend didn’t come to visit me (when I was very sad that my dad was in the hospital) because he was growing psychedelic mushrooms in his closet and couldn’t leave them and when I told him that was sort of shitty, he said I didn’t support his passion, so I can totally relate to how Otsu feels.
Anyway, it’s a really sad scene.
Musashi is later jumped by Tōji and a bunch of Seijūrō’s students, but he fights them off and flees, demanding a fair duel with the guy. Sasaki (the master swordsman that Musashi wanted to meet), shows up, telling Tōji that he would lose in a fight against Musashi. Tōji says “Come at me, bro” and with one move, Sasaki chops off Tōji’s topknot.
Akemi (who is now running around with a knife) and Otsu run into each other in the village and Akemi figures out that they’re after the same man. “You must be Otsu,” she says. (Akemi is giving major Fatal Attraction vibes here.) She tells Otsu, “I’m the girl Takezo promised to marry.” This is a liiiieeeee.
And then it is like VERBATIM “The Boy is Mine” Brandy and Monica. Verbatim.
They resolve nothing but before Akemi runs away, she tells Otsu that she had planned to kill herself that night, but instead she will now live for Takezo/Musashi. Otsu weeps.
Otsu goes back to the priest, who is blah blah blahing about who cares because I just remembered I hate him. Otsu tells him she wants to become a nun, but the priest, being reasonable for once, tells her she doesn't need to do that just because Musashi isn’t available.
Otsu considering nun life
The boy, Jōtarō, shows up and the priest just laughs at him. Okay, DICK???
Sasaki (swordsman) sits by a fire in his home where Akemi is sleeping nearby…? When she wakes up, he grabs her and tries to kiss her and when she fights back, he tells her it’s a joke. LOL no. They argue about Musashi and her feelings for him. I truly don’t know what is up with all these fragile dudes thinking they own Akemi in every way, but it’s exhausting.
Tōji and a bunch of his friends show up at Sasaki’s house, demanding he let Akemi go. Sasaki challenges all of them to a fight in a field and after he kills two guys, Seijūrō shows up, calling Sasaki by his name, much to his surprise.
Musashi has been taken by the sword sharpener, Kōetsu, to a “nightclub” which is just a very quiet and beautiful room where a “courtesan” is performing a solo dance while Kōetsu plays an instrument.
Back at the martial arts school, Denshichirō, Seijūrō 's brother shows up. There is drama between the two immediately. Josh says he sounds like Silvio Dante speaking Japanese and he couldn’t be more right. Denshichirō is soooo pissed at his brother for being a coward and not fighting Musashi, so he’s going to fight Musashi himself. Oh, sweetie. Denshichirō has no idea what he’s getting into.
Musashi returns to the nightclub after the duel, totally cool, where he spends some time with the courtesan, Yoshino (Michiyo Kogure). She roasts him for not being more forward with her, that he can’t be a good samurai if he can’t even conquer a courtesan. This logic is flawed, but I respect her hustle. AHEM: sex work is work! (But only if it is consensual!)
Musashi and Yoshino
Soooo, not to startle you out of your little britches, but Denshichirō is extremely dead and Seijūrō’s sort of like well shit. Now I have to duel Musashi. In a weird move, he asks Akemi for her blessing to duel Musashi because he knows she loves him. This is a pathetic ask and him searching for a way out of this fight. Her beautiful, stoic response: I will pray for Musashi to win. ICE COLD.
Matahachi (‘member him? Last time we saw him, he was given a package from a dying man to deliver to Sasaki), drunk and stumbling, runs into his parents back in the village. They catch up in their home, where he shows them his diploma from fencing school, which was in that package and belongs to Sasaki. His dad says, “why does the diploma say Kojirō Sasaki on it?” Ope! In a lie that could only happen in the Medieval times, Matahachi says he changed his name and they believe him. His parents praise Buddha because they can now use Matahachi to kill Musashi/Takezo, who they STILL have an unknown (to me) vendetta against. Man, there’s so much fuckery in this movie!!!
This is when I started to think that Musashi is falling for Yoshino, the courtesan. A mature woman, she says that despite her love for him (she fell in love with him at some point, just like we all do. JUST LIKE WE ALL DO), she wants him to be a great samurai. He leaves, seeming sad to leave her behind.
Walking through the village, Musashi is surrounded by Seijūrō’s men, but Sasaki swoops in and tells the men to back off.
I’m not super sure why Sasaki is so protective of Musashi, but I’m guessing it's just a straight up respect thing. If Musashi wants to leave town, he’ll leave, and they should let him leave and be dishonorable. They can’t force him to stay. This movie is so deep!
The men tell Musashi that Seijūrō will meet him at Ichijoji Temple for their duel. There is a hand painted sign there accepting the challenge, which is hilarious and cool.
So, Otsu has decided to become a nun. But as the priest prepares to shave her head, the boy, Jōtarō, tells her Musashi will be dueling tomorrow, so she asks to postpone the whole nun thing until tomorrow. Do you remember the episode of The Office when Michael wants to adopt a baby and Pam tells him it can take like a year to have a baby placed with you and he says “Blech. I don’t even know if I’ll want a baby in a year.” It’s sort of like that.
The priest tells her she is “destined for the way of darkness” which is dramatic but probably true, like so many of your favorite poems from high school.
Musashi bathes in the forest in the moonlight, preparing for the battle, and we see buns, y’all.
Seijūrō prepares to leave for the duel and his men PHYSICALLY hold him back because they’re so scared for him. To his credit (I guess?) he says he must go.
Matahachi and his mother somehow find Otsu walking through the forest and he asks her to elope. She has to remind him he married another lady. She tells him she loves Musashi and his response is literally “you slut! I must kill you!” ***a tale as old as tiiiimmmeee***
Before this can happen, thank g, Sasaki, the superhero of this movie, shows up and stops him. Matahachi’s mom tells him to show his diploma...which of course belongs to Sasaki. There is a hilarious “I am Kojirō Sasaki.” “No, I am Kojirō Sasaki.” exchange, but Matahachi is totally busted. While he’s getting humiliated, Otsu is able to run away.
In what must be the smallest and busiest patch of woods in the world, Akemi runs into Musashi. Otsu obviously sees this because she is also in the woods. Akemi begs him to run away with her. He literally just says “good luck” and leaves to fight. She tries to warn him that he may be ambushed but he leaves anyway. He truly does NOT have time for her shit.
Akemi and Musashi
Musashi arrives at the duel which is not a duel at allllll...it is an ambush with dozens of swordsmen. He begins to fight them off. Akemi and Sasaki and Otsu watch from a mountain. This scene is so intense and slow. They fight in rice paddies, in the dark, up to their ankles in water, struggling, while Musashi walks backward on a tiny strip of dry land, his only true advantage.
The priest confronts Otsu and she confesses she has decided not to become a nun. She will devote her life, instead, to chasing after Musashi. Honeyyyyy.
Musashi finally gets away from the swordsmen. He’s super tired and fucked up looking. But he meets Seijūrō in a clearing in the woods. Musashi has...kind of lost it.
I feel worried that he does not have the “mental relaxation” that old man in the beginning told him he needed to have. And then, AS I am thinking this, Musashi has flashbacks of all the people who’ve told him his weaknesses: you are brute force, you’re too strong, you lack mental relaxation, you lack affection, etc. He gets one slice into Seijūrō and walks away. Seijūrō, probably just happy to be alive, lets him leave.
Flash forward: Musashi and Otsu are living VERY happily on the banks of the river in the mountains, like they dreamed of. They talk about how dreamy it all is and as a total vibe kill, he says they should see Matahachi and work things out. Why tho. He asks her if she’s really over him and she just looks into the river.
I really hate to do this but I have to officially announce that my love affair with Musashi is over because he then pins her down and tries to kiss her even after she tells him to stop, leaving her crying. So that was fun while it lasted. BOOOOOOOO every single man in this movie!
He tells her that he has “renounced the love of women.” WELL WE DON’T WANT YOU, SCRUB.
He leaves.
Josh says, “Oh wow. He’s an incel. I am now on samurai 8chan”
Of course, Akemi and Sasaki see this all go down, watching Musashi again walk away on a solo journey to work on himself. Cool, maybe this time he can “work on” not being a creepy shithead!
I can’t wait to see how this all wraps up in Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island! Honestly, I’m just curious if Musashi has to die to finally reach enlightenment, like so many of us do amirite? See you next week!
XOXO,
Steph