action genres”. This attitude relaxed somewhat in 1949, as the Occupation became more concerned with the threat of international communism and less with jidaigeki and chanbara. Inagaki himself had directed Kanketsu Sasaki Kojirô: Ganryû-jima kettô, an earlier black and white film about Sasaki that climaxes with the fatal duel between Miyamoto and Sasaki, in 1951. That film also featured Mifune in a brief appearance as Miyamoto that nonetheless won him a share of top billing, but starred Tomoemon Otani, a Kabuki actor who specialized in women's roles on stage, as Sasaki. After the Allies left Japan in 1952, “the way was clear for the golden age of the samurai film”, allowing Inagaki to specialize in the genre he had been most closely associated with before the war. World War II, the Allied occupation of Japan and then the Allies leaving certainly influenced Japanese film. Additionally, the film’s character Musashi Miyamoto was an actual person who lived from 1584-1645 and was “famed for his two-handed fighting technique and his delicate touch with the Zen ink brush”. The film also relates to Miyamoto’s actual battle with Sasaki, which “took place on April 13, 1612 on Ganryu Island, located off the coast of the Bizen Province”. Cast Toshirō Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi Kōji Tsuruta as Sasaki Kojirō Kaoru Yachigusa as Otsu Michiko Saga as Omitsu Mariko Okada as Akemi Takashi Shimura as Sado Nagaoka, the court official Minoru Chiaki as Sasuke, the boatman Takamaru Sasaki as Omitsu's father Daisuke Katō as Toji Gion Haruo Tanaka as Kumagoro, the horse thief Kichijiro Ueda as Priest Ogon Kokuten Kodo as Old Priest Nikkan Ikio Sawamura as Innkeeper References External links Samurai III an essay by Bruce Eder at the Criterion Collection 1956 films 1950s martial arts films Films about duels Films directed by Hiroshi Inagaki Jidaigeki films Samurai films Cultural depictions of Miyamoto Musashi 1950s Japanese films