After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history, which sees generations of his ancestors sacrificing themselves for the sake of their cruel lords. hey were samurai, the military nobility caste who carried out acts of violence at the behest of feudal lords, but suffered evenmore so under their cruelty, often forced into ritual suicide (seppuku). The women were under constant threat of kidnapping and rape,and the men subjected to arbitrary disfigurement and homosexual slavery...
Thoughtful film provides a different look at the oft romanticized life of the samurai and that tradition's implications for life in a modernizing Japan. Beautiful and painful to watch, but I'm glad I've had the chance to see it.