I just have a really quick question. My main problem throughout the movie was that I sort of forgot what the different people looked like... For a while, I completly lost track of where Lady Asano was... I'm not sure if she showed up in the movie after she found out her husband died. Since the clan was dissolved where would she go? Since she (I assume) married into the Asano clan could she have gone back to her parents or something? Also, why did the old guy in the brothel who danced around look really familiar (not Oishi but the one who did the elaborate dance)? And did Sampei's girlfriend know that when Oishi was singing about the sparrow that he was singing about his son? And was that even Sampei's girlfriend or just a girl who looked like her?
Posted by letisha at November 4, 2004 05:49 AMYou've put your finger right on a number of the Problems! Gold Star for enunciating them so clearly. There ARE some unambiguous answers, but also some questions that could only be resolved by looking at different versions of the Tale. The few I can definitively answer: YES it was Sampei's girlfriend. But Sampei isn't Oishi's son (he does have a son, as we'll see). I think that the girl didn't know who the sparrow was. The dude who does the dance is sort of enigmatic --he's not one of the other characters in disguise, and he might be a person of samurai class who doesn't live as a samurai. Basically his function in the Tale is just to be a clown, to underline the dissolute life Oishi is faking.
The Lady Asano question is a bit more vexing. She does appear later, quite dramatically, but I don't really know the ins and outs of her status as the widow of a disgraced daimyo. Have to leave that one open for now.
So what were you doing up at 5:49 AM???