Samurai 2: Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Director: Hiroshi Inagaki
Year Released: 1955
Rating: 3.0

The middle section of the Samurai trilogy pits Musashi (Toshiro Mifune) against an entire school of warriors and in the middle of two women. And you thought you had problems. Same premise as the first film but with even less plotting and development - and transitions are a bit abrupt - but there's a good deal of swordplay and setup for part three. The 'night fighting' scenes (like in part 1) don't look very good and are hard to make out (which could be due to the Criterion transfer, but I doubt it).