I love to watch the scene in which Mifune dispatches the two nosy soldiers and leaps upon the horse to chase down the others. The ensuing chase scene is better than any western. How he could ride the horse, hold up that big sword, and give his magnificent war whoop is beyond me. It's a great action scene.
I watched it because I am interested in Japanese culture although I am not very familiar with their cinema which I want to learn more about, and learning that George Lucas was inspired to make SW because of this film made me even more interested in checking it out. I wouldn't say it's a 'bad' film, but I didn't like it. I absolutely hated the two goofball characters who are supposed to be like R2-D2 and C3-PO (although they really aren't that similar), and they are the main characters, so it was hard to enjoy for that reason. The story was quite boring and didn't make much sense. I was totally confused by the ending as well. The only scenes I liked were the chase mentioned in this thread, the duel which follows immediately afterward, and the bonfire song and dance. Every other scene was pretty bad.