"Nihon kengo den" (Duel at Yagyu Valley, 1945) is a Toho studios chanbara film with big stars and nice scenery. The film was penned by Mimura Shintaro and directed by Takizawa Eisuke, and was probably made with a considerably smaller budget than usual, money being tight because of the war situation in the spring of 1945. It manages to turn the financial short-comings into an advantage however, as the bulk of the film has been made outdoors in locations with refreshing scenery. It also has big jidai-geki stars, that many fans will recognize.I would guess that the American censors later cut a bunch of the film, as it now is less than an hour in duration. This hour did not include propaganda though, and for genre fans, this is an easy film to digest. The plot-line is basic, and resembles a lot of the Zatoichi films of the 1960's. We have a wonderer from the house of Hosoin, who is an expert in martial arts, fencing included. He arrives to this region with forests and mountains and meets a bunch of bad guys, or at least opposing characters who are just hanging out in the forest, waiting for someone to come so that they could practice fencing, I guess. He doesn't want to oblige them, so they pick on the next guy who comes along, ending up killing the poor dude. The protagonist meets the brother and sister of the guy who died, and the killers are trying to frame our main guy for the murder. However, this story-line does not take too long to come to an end, and after he has settled things, the protagonist goes to a more official match with an opponent of note. I won't spoil the ending, but it was unusual: probably my favorite thing in the movie.The film is nothing amazing, as a story, but because of the short length, it was pretty watchable. Fujita Susumu from Kurosawa's "Sugata Sanshiro" (1943) is also in the film. Last year, I watched director Takizawa's previous film "Ina no Kantaro" (1943), and "Nihon kengo den" is certainly the better film. However, it is considerably tame and light, compared to post-war chanbara films, and even in 1945, Mizoguchi's "Meito bijomaru" and Kurosawa's "Zoku Sugata Sanshiro" were somewhat better films.