Great film!! Questions. *SPOILERS!*

Interesting points

Point 1:

I think Seibei struggles with himself throughout it seems clear to me that he no longer wants to be a Samurai but so be the tradition/culture of the time he not exactly go to careerbuilder.com :). The only thing he can do is as we all do in work grumble. True Seibei grumbles more eloquently that we tend to do in the modern day but I see that as very much the same as I complain about my job.

Point 2:
I agree with you on that but It was a pleasant change to BS Hollywood action film style big boss battles. I guess I actually fund it kind of refreshing :) though I do feel after reading your opinion you kind of influenced mine.

Point 3:
The "Bloody Pulp of a Man" statement I feel was maybe something to do with him trying to impress Tomoe (the girl). Upon entering the house at the "final battle" I think his enthusiasm for his mission kind of faded again. He was especially thrown when Yeomen (i couldn’t find his name on imdb so ill have to remember) wasn’t immediately ready to fight him and they began talking.


Question for you:
Throughout the film there are instances when there is talk of peasants dieing of starvation and turning up in the rivers etc.. We even see a body floating by the river on at least one occasion. Why is the river supposedly so laden with corpses? Is this as opposed to burying them? Or did they expire while searching the river for food?

I agree with you on the movie I also really liked it. This is actually the only post I’ve ever made about a movie so I would be very interested in further comments.

Finally I love netflix !

Take this for what you will, have lived in Japan for quite some time and also am a Japanese study minor, plus a beautiful Japanese gf.........anyway you might get a more profund answer from a real japanese person though.

1. Even to this day, in Japan. you do not express emotion in public, especially males. Its extremely uncommon to even express your opinion if it differs from a higher up person. Not to mention each time, Twilight does this it is to turn an elder and more important person done, which is not done...EVER. they weren't angry at his emotion, they mad that he said not to them, first his unlce and than the retainer his no was a disgrace to the higher ups he who asked him. he was lucky the retainer did not ask him for his life after he said no the first time. in Japan they would have been like ""oh sh#t did he just say that, damn he has ba!!s" But yes, it is sympathy points he wants to be a family man not a cold samuria killer, most likely all salarymen of japan, can understand him, and wish the had the nuts to talk to a boss as openly as he did....but they don't

2. actually Japanese people like the whole "fate" thing it was meant to happen and all that jazz, I mean the samuria holding fort in the house was at a disadvantage with the long sword, it was bound to happen, he was off his game and delusional and he slipped up big time.

3.He succeeded that's all that matters, no dishonor, especially when this guy was a master swordsmen, now if this was some peasant prolly a dishonor, but zenemon was a master, so a win is a win, plus wouldn't make for a thrilling fight scene if twilight just kicked his a@# everywhere would it, i expected him to die, most japanese movies do not end as happy as this one did, and beleive me this one ended happy.


4. As for the river one, Funerals were expensive and not many peasants could afford them, so the body accidently slips into the river, aken away by fate and it is free.

1)

He's not your typical samurai per se. He understands and agrees with his daughter when she tells him that she is learning about books and even tells her (in a sense) that it's good for her since it gives her the power to think. All he wants is to be left alone. Sure he wants his and his daughters' lives to get better, but not at the cost of getting wed to a woman (he tells his uncle that it would be a discomfort to the woman) or to get "compensated" for killing the man at the end.

I doubt it's a "cheap ploy for sympathy points," but the point is that Seibei isn't a traditional samurai. All of the people he's talked to (that has rebuked him) expect a man who would agree right off the bat to the things they've demanded, but instead they're met with a man who would tell his real thoughts. Of course, at the end even though he's refused the "request", he still accepts the "order" to go and kill Zenemon.

2)

Did anyone else notice Zenemon look up at the ceiling? I doubt his sword getting stuck in the wooden beam was sheer luck since he's been a more "active" swordsman than Seibei and has lived in that house for, I presume, a long time. The point is that I'm sure he knows that his longer sword is at a disadvantage if he fights in the house (especially since Seibei brought a kodachi). I think he calculated his overhead swing, and its result, very well. He was probably resigned to his fate seeing as how his life was miserable (not recently, I presume) when his wife and daughter died. He said himself that he was not an easy man to get along with, and in the very end the man who would end up killing him becomes the man who most identifies with his situation.

3)

I'm pretty sure all those things he said with bravado were before the girl told him that she had accepted a marriage proposal. He probably had come to terms with his feelings and confessed his life (kind of) to her only to be told that she was to be wed to another man.

He's not that much of a bloody pulp. He only had two cuts (one on his arm and another on his leg) and he was only in a weakened state because the battle had dragged on for a while and he was suffering from blood loss. I also doubt honor plays a part in this, as he is just coming home from battle and the statements he issued before were also influenced by emotions. I mean, if he said to his lord that he would kill the man by X time and come home hours after X, then that would be a bit dishonorable. Even more so if he had let the man run away. So yeah, I believe honor plays very little part in the exchange between him and the girl and the result his body was in when he came home. But hey, he won, didn't he?

You make some interesting points, but as for Iguchi being "emotionally forthcoming" and paying the price for it, this is obviously not your average Samurai, so I cannot feel that this is a "cheap ploy for sympathy". He is a humble man who wants no more fighting, so this is not out of character as far as I can see.

Your second point I won't get into, but finally you ask "is this honorable or dishonarable in Japanese culture" but I'm not quite sure what you are referring to. Do you mean to promise to succeed in a battle and then return bloodied, but nevertheless, the victor? The other man is dead and he is alive, but he did not "decisively succeed"?

I think that anyone who has competed in any way knows that confidence before "going to battle" is essential to success, and that there is no dishonor at taking a beating in the course of victory.