Samurai from Nowhere

I don't know if I'd call this criminally underrated, but it's definitely underrated to at least a moderate extent. It's a solid and entertaining old samurai flick. The action satisfies, there are some fun characters, and it transitions from a comedic first half to a more serious second half in a relatively smooth fashion.

Fans of old-school Japanese action movies should check it out, but it is hard to find. I came across one version that had English subtitles, but the audio was muted. There's a version on YouTube without subtitles. So I played the audio from the YouTube version in sync with the other version, and it seemed to work alright.

Samurai From Nowhere aka Dojo Yaburi (1964)

This is standard Samurai movie fare for the 60's but of good quality. I was surprised to find this on YouTube and it's well worth you checking out. The story is well done and covers a lot of various characters. As in most Japanese movies there's a variety of humor, drama, and action.

Ihei Misawa (Isamu Nagato) is an impoverished Ronin with a heart of gold. He rescues a young woman Tae (Shima Iwashita) from being married off to a noble and is trying to find work to pay off boarder guards to get them to the next prefecture and safety. Both of them are living with an alias, hiding out from the authorities.

In addition to hard labor, Ihei is making money by taking on various dojos matches in the area. Fortunately, Ihei is a great swordsman and would like to eventually teach his sword techniques in a dojo of his own. Ihei even competed in a festival match with Gunjuro Ohba (Tetsuro Tanba) but they were too evenly matched. Unfortunately, what money he makes sometimes ends up helping other people where he's staying.

Isamu Nagato is a ronin, a masterless samurai, always on the lookout for a job that never comes. He's a funny looking fellow. He takes part in challenges for money, which is not honorable, but what can you do, especially when you win? He also 'interferes' when people are squabbling. He doesn't see the need for unpleasantness. When he enters a competition and eventually draws with Tetsurô Tanba, who is a glowering fellow and equally skilled. Tanba is a loner and openly mercenary: so much to murder a commoner, so much to murder a samurai, so much to break through a border guard. You know these two are going to meet again, and there will be much blood shed.

But that's not really the point of this movie. It's about ordinary people with ordinary problems like love and money. Nagato's character is shown immediately, but his back story and his current state of employment and his relationship with Shima Iwashita flesh him out. She has a story too, and so does Tanba. And the three of them make up a very interesting tale.

Highly skilled but humble swordsman tries to live a kind, puposeful life. More detail in the critics review 'Japan On Film'. I concur with the earlier user reviewer that this deserves more recognition and appreciation. Some familiar supporting actors but the lead is unknown to me as is the director. Undiscovered gem! At this writing, free on YouTube.