Killer movie, one of the best of Kurasawa's samurai films, second only to Seven Samurai and arguably more entertaining than Ran.
One of my favorite parts is towards the beginning where these conspiring young samurai realize they're surrounded by the enemy, look at each other, and grimly draw their swords to meet certain death. Mifune's character's like: nah, c'mon no need for that... and takes control of things. There are lots of moments like that, even more important than the sword fighting. Like the very last fight, it doesn't matter how it happened, it matters more that it did happen and why.