Sometimes the second part of a movie trilogy usually can lag a little. While this movie doesn’t lag, exactly, it doesn’t have the same amount of excitement, and therefore pure entertainment value, as the first one. It’s still got the same mix of melodrama, western, and samurai epic, but it’s a little slower paced, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It makes sense, really, considering Miyamoto Musashi isn’t the same brash youth he was in the first film, but is trying to be a proper, honourable samurai. Toshiro Mifune is great, unsurprisingly, in the title role, and the pacing and framing of the last fight scene is BRILLIANT. Very good; I hope the third one is a good cap to the series.