Summary
We see Saburo sitting on his horse in the middle of a field, as Jiro's army approaches. A messenger rides forward delivering a message to Saburo about where he can find his father. "We are to withdraw as soon as we have Father," Saburo says to the soldiers, and they decide to wait until dark, when suddenly, a soldier points out Lord Ayabe's troops assembling on a nearby hillside.
The scene shifts to Jiro, as Kurogane warns him that Fujimaki and Ayabe are surrounding them. He warns Jiro that they ought not give the lords any excuse to attack.
Suddenly, we see Sué and Tsurumaru waiting for the attendant who said she would go back for Tsurumaru's flute. "I'll go see what's keeping her," Sué says, but her brother warns her not to and tells her he does not want to be alone. She hands him an image of the Buddha to protect him while she is gone, then goes in search of her attendant.
One of Saburo's soldiers brings Kyoami to Saburo. Kyoami was found looking for Ichimonji in the wilderness, and is upset about the missing leader. Saburo resolves to go in search of Ichimonji on the plain immediately, rather than waiting until dark. Kyoami climbs onto Saburo's horse and they go with Tango to find the old man.
When Saburo goes in search of Ichimonji, Jiro mistakes his movement for him planning to deploy his troops in battle. Kurogane tries to dissuade Jiro from attacking, but Jiro is set on it. "Kaede barks and you grovel!" Kurogane says to his master, disappointed, and Jiro dismisses him from the battlefield. He then orders his soldiers to attack. Meanwhile, Saburo's men send a messenger to warn Saburo about the attack. As Jiro's foot soldiers assemble, Saburo's soldiers retreat into the forest.
In the plains, Kyoami finds Ichimonji and calls Saburo over. Saburo tries to awaken his father, who sits up with a stricken expression, staring at the sky. They look up at the clouds moving swiftly overhead. "What a terrifying sky. Am I in another world? Am I in a paradise?" Ichimonji says.
As Saburo tries to help his father, Ichimonji becomes angry, accusing them of trying to deprive him of his own death. Saburo reminds Ichimonji that he is his son, and Ichimonji stops and remembers, running away in fear. "How can I face you after what I've done to you?" Ichimonji says, stumbling away, "No words can forgive me. I deserve to die."
Saburo assures his father that he ought not be remorseful, and Tango insists that Ichimonji look at his son. "You will live with us, and you will forget this bad dream," Saburo says to his father, as Ichimonji cries.
Meanwhile, Jiro's men make moves to attack Saburo's army, but many are shot by the soldiers who are hiding in the forest. Jiro commands his soldiers to burn the forest to get Saburo's men out into the open. Suddenly, a messenger comes to tell Jiro that Ayabe's army has crossed the border and is headed towards the First Castle. Jiro is alarmed and orders his army to go back towards the castle.
We see Ichimonji riding on Saburo's horse with him, whispering that he has much to tell him. They laugh about their reunion, when suddenly Saburo is shot from his horse. Ichimonji crouches over his son's body with Tango and Kyoami, realizing that Saburo is dead. Ichimonji is heartbroken, and addresses his son, saying, "I have so much to tell you." He embraces his son's corpse in a craze, then collapses on top of him, dying himself. Kyoami cries over the two dead bodies.
Saburo's soldiers approach and announce that Ayabe's soldiers have taken the First Castle. Tango collapses, saddened by the fact that Ichimonji and Saburo are both dead. Kyoami yells up to Buddha, asking how he can be so "mischievous and cruel."
Suddenly, the scene shifts and we see Jiro's men arriving at the First Castle, seeking to defend it. An assassin arrives and delivers Sué's head wrapped in cloth, evidently killed when she went back to Tsurumaru's hovel.
Kurogane goes to Kaede to confront her about the killing of Sué. "All I wanted was to avenge the destruction of my own family," Kaede says, "I wanted to see this castle burn." Abruptly, Kurogane takes out his sword and kills Kaede, splattering her blood on the wall behind her. Kurogane then tells Jiro to prepare for death and defeat.
Saburo's soldiers carry Ichimonji and Saburo's bodies through the plains. We see Tsurumaru, waiting for his sister, holding his picture of the Buddha, before accidentally dropping it from a great height. The camera zooms in on the image of the Buddha, then shows Tsurumara from a distance, alone.
Analysis
Jiro's strategy to protect his land rests on his deception of his brother, Saburo. He sends a message to his brother telling him that he will hand over their father, even though Jiro has no idea where Ichimonji is. In this final section of the film, all of the different characters have very different information about what is actually going on, and different preferences about what ought to happen. Even within Jiro's court, his most trusted advisor, Kurogane, is in disagreement with his manipulative lover, Kaede. This lends the final section an atmosphere of tension and high stakes.
These misunderstandings only lead to war and bloodshed. When Jiro thinks that Saburo is declaring war against his kingdom, he orders his troops to attack, against Kurogane's wishes. In fact, Saburo is simply going in search of his father, and has no intention of starting a war with his brother. The culture of violence and bloodshed created by Ichimonji has created a chaotic and suspicious kingdom, in which every subject in the court is conniving, avaricious, and paranoid about their standing in the hierarchy.
Ichimonji is driven mad by his own shame and guilt—not only over the violence that he enacted politically, but his dismissal of his son, Saburo. When Saburo finds him in the plains and identifies himself, Ichimonji runs away and asks to be poisoned for how horribly he treated his youngest son. In his state of madness and remorse, Ichimonji is reduced to a weeping pile, a far cry from the formidable and stern temperament he possessed at the beginning of the story.
In a devastating turn of events, immediately after Saburo and his father make peace, riding back to his castle to make amends and live happily, Saburo is shot from his horse. One minute they are laughing about the father-and-son bonding they will soon be able to pursue, and the next, Ichimonji is crouching over his son's dead body. The scene is devastating not only because it stages a father losing his son, but also because it has taken Ichimonji so long to realize that the son he imagined to be disloyal was in fact his greatest ally, and now it is too late.
The film ends, curiously, with a striking image of the most vulnerable victim of the violence that has taken place, Tsurumaru, as he waits for his sister to return, having no idea that she was killed by an assassin. The blind man stands on a ledge, before dropping the image of the Buddha that she gave him. The camera settles on a closeup of the Buddha's image, before zooming out to show just how alone and isolated in the wilderness Tsurumaru is. In the midst of all the destruction that has taken place stands a blind man cut off from his family and his sense of safety, with only an image of god—an image that the can't see—to keep him company.
