Samurai Monogatari

2003

21min

A forest, Japan. A man stops, sits and waits. Behind him, at dawn, the sun streams through the trees and, as he waits for his last day on earth, he contemplates. He thinks about what he has done to draw him here. As he waits, a traveller approaches him and asks what he's doing. And so the wanderer explains that he was once a samurai who killed without thought, who enjoyed taking revenge for the torture of his family, who was filled with hate. But after he begged his master for release, because he was sick of killing, and he was refused and had to kill his master, he had a change of attitude - not least because he created an eight-year-old orphan, who he felt duty-bound to provide for. Now, ten years on from the slaying, his attitude is that of circular fate, that he will now get what he has deserved for many years.