Shogun's Samurai

The second Tokugawa shogun dies. It emerges that he was poisoned, and that the men who did it served his son Iemitsu. Iemitsu stammers and has a birthmark on his face, and for that he is not respected. His brother Tadanaga has his own eye on the succession. The country splits in two and it goes to war. Iemitsu's fencing master, Yagyu Munenori, is set on making his pupil shogun, and to do it he sells out everyone, his own son included. Kinji Fukasaku directs; two hours and ten minutes, with Kinnosuke Nakamura as Munenori and Sonny Chiba as his son Jubei. Fukasaku came out of yakuza pictures and shot the samurai story with the same eye, as a fight over power.