First, realize this is a three film series, and if you watch the first one, you have to watch the next two. Also realize this is more like a Japanese David Lean than any Kurosawa, Suzuki or avant-garde Japanese thriller. It’s more about just telling you the damn story, and less about blowing you away with the sublimeness of Tohoscope. Studio sets abound. Caricatures abound. Melodrama abounds. But action abounds as well. And the theme of the lone wolf (lonely wolf) certainly takes center stage. The film is worth watching because it has Toshirô Mifune at his energetic most. There are times when it seems as though they’ve simply captured some wild animal and threw together a film around him.