Just reviewed Ronin once again. The plot is simple and rather basic: there was no beginning and there would be no end… Just endless blind action…
But some quotes are terrific. One couldn’t define things better:
– The 47 ronin. Do you know it?… Forty-seven samurai whose master was betrayed and killed > by another lord… They became ronin… masterless samurai disgraced by another man’s treachery. For three years they plotted, pretending to be thieves, mercenaries, even madman. > Then they snuck into the castle of their lord’s betrayer and killed him.”
– Nice. I like that. My kind of job.
– There’s something more… All 47 of them committed seppuku… ritual suicide in the yard of the castle…
– Well. That I don’t like so much…
– But you understand it?
– What do you mean I understand it?
– The warrior code – the delight in the battle. You understand that, yes? But also something more. You understand there is something outside yourself that has to be served. And when that need is gone… when belief has died… what are you? A man without a master.
They became masterless. And they don’t know what to do. Some of them hide, others rule and everyone waits… Waits for the chance to become useful again…