- Kambei Shimada: This is the nature of war: By protecting others, you save yourselves. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself.
- Kikuchiyo: What do you think of farmers? You think they're saints? Hah! They're foxy beasts! They say, "We've got no rice, we've no wheat. We've got nothing!" But they have! They have everything! Dig under the floors! Or search the barns! You'll find plenty! Beans, salt, rice, sake! Look in the valleys, they've got hidden warehouses! They pose as saints but are full of lies! If they smell a battle, they hunt the defeated! They're nothing but stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean! God damn it all!
- [He hurls a handful of arrows into the wall]
- Kikuchiyo: But then who made them such beasts? You did! You samurai did it! You burn their villages! Destroy their farms! Steal their food! Force them to labour! Take their women! And kill them if they resist! So what should farmers do?
- [Kikuchiyo sinks to his knees, and begins to sob uncontrollably]
- Kikuchiyo: Damn... damn... damn... damn...
- [Kambei unfolds his arms and looks down at the palms of his hands]
- Kambei Shimada: [Quietly, after a long pause] You were the son of a farmer, weren't you?
- Kambei Shimada: So. Again we are defeated.
- [Shichiroji looks puzzled at Kambei]
- Kambei Shimada: The farmers have won. Not us.
- Kambei Shimada: Go to the north. The decisive battle will be fought there.
- Gorobei Katayama: Why didn't you build a fence there?
- Kambei Shimada: A good fort needs a gap. The enemy must be lured in. So we can attack them. If we only defend, we lose the war.
- Kambei Shimada: [after telling Katsushiro to go home] I know what you're going to say. I was once your age, you know. You dream of training yourself, distinguishing yourself in wars, then becoming lord of your own castle and domain... but as you dream those dreams, time flies. Before your dreams become reality, your hair would turn gray like mine. By that time, your parents would have been dead and your friends gone, and you'll find yourself all alone.
- Gisaku: All farmers ever do is worry, whether the rain falls, the sun shines or the wind blows. In short, all they know is fear.
- Gorobei Katayama: The threshing's done and still no bandits. Everyone's saying they might not come after all.
- Kambei Shimada: A tempting thought. But when you think you're safe is precisely when you're most vulnerable.
- Farmer Manzo: Old man, I'm worried. The village girls will go crazy over the samurai. If the samurai touch 'em, all hell will break loose.
- Gisaku: Bandits are coming, you fool. Your head is on the block and all you think of are your whiskers?
- Heihachi Hayashida: Haven't you ever seen anyone cut firewood before?
- Gorobei Katayama: You seem to enjoy it.
- Heihachi Hayashida: That's just the way I am. Yah!
- [he chops another log]
- Gorobei Katayama: You're good!
- Heihachi Hayashida: Not really. It's a lot harder than killing enemies. Yah!
- [he splits another log]
- Gorobei Katayama: Have you killed many?
- Heihachi Hayashida: Since it's impossible to kill them all - yah!
- [he splits another log]
- Heihachi Hayashida: I usually run away.
- Gorobei Katayama: A splendid principle.
- Heihachi Hayashida: Thank you. Yah!
- Kikuchiyo: You fool! Damn you! You call yourself a horse! For shame! Hey! Wait! Please! I apologize! Forgive me!
- Heihachi Hayashida: I'm Heihachi Hayashida, a fencer of the Wood Cutting School.
- [Gorobei bursts into giggles. Kambei looks unamused]
- Kikuchiyo: [in a drunken stupor] You again. I see that bald head of yours in my dreams. You had the nerve to ask me if I was a samurai. Didn't you, huh? I never forget a face. Look here, though I look like hell, I'm a real samurai, all right. Here. I got something for you. Damn jerks. Looky here.
- [He clumsily fumbles around in his robe, and presents a scroll from inside it]
- Kikuchiyo: There, just you look at this. It's been handed down in my family for generations and generations. And you asked me if I were a samurai! You jerks. Look at this, just look at this! That's me right there.
- [Kikuchiyo unrolls it and points randomly to a part of the scroll]
- Kambei Shimada: Kikuchiyo, born on 17 February, the Second Year of Tensho.
- [He suddenly bursts out laughing]
- Kikuchiyo: What's so damn funny?
- Kambei Shimada: You don't look thirteen!
- [Kambei is considering the farmer's offer]
- Kambei Shimada: It's impossible.
- Katsushiro: Sir! Why not arm them with...?
- Kambei Shimada: I thought of that, too.
- Katsushiro: But sir.
- Kambei Shimada: [pointedly] This would not be a game. A band of forty bandits! Two or three "samurai" could accomplish nothing. Defense is harder than offense. Mountains in the back of the village?
- Rikichi: Yes!
- Kambei Shimada: Can horses get over them?
- Rikichi: Yes!
- Kambei Shimada: Fields in front. The village is wide open to horsemen... until the fields are flooded. One guard for each direction takes four. Two more as a reserve. You'll need at least... seven, including me.
- Gorobei Katayama: How did you fare?
- Kambei Shimada: We let a good fish get away. An excellent swordsman.
- Gorobei Katayama: [laughs] They say the fish that gets away looks bigger than it really is.
- [on taking Katsushiro as a student]
- Kambei Shimada: You embarrass me. You're overestimating me. Listen, I'm not a man with any special skill, but I've had plenty of experience in battles; losing battles, all of them. In short, that's all I am. Drop such an idea for your own good.
- Katsushiro: No Sir, my decision has been made. I'll follow you sir.
- Kambei Shimada: I forbid it. I can't afford to take a kid with me.
- Kikuchiyo: Goddamn samurai...
- [He falls asleep on the straw and starts snoring loudly]
- Katsushiro: Is he really a samurai?
- Kambei Shimada: Only in his mind.
- Gorobei Katayama: I'm with you. But I have to say that although I understand the farmers' suffering and understand why you would take up their cause, it's your character that I find most compelling. In life one finds friends in the strangest places.
- [Gorobei is watching Heihachi, who is methodically splitting logs]
- Gorobei Katayama: How'd you like to kill thirty bandits?
- [Heihachi spins around in surprise as his axe swings wide]
- [Kikuchiyo helps Kambei carry the body of the wife away, while he holds the infant]
- Kambei Shimada: Let's go!
- [He looks back at Kikuchiyo, who is standing in the middle of the river, stunned]
- Kambei Shimada: Damn it, what it is it now?
- [Kikuchiyo suddenly sinks to his knees, cradling the child]
- Kikuchiyo: This baby... It's me. This is just what happened to me!
- [He sobs]
- Katsushiro: [gushing about Kyuzo] He has the real samurai spirit. He is totally fearless. Yet, at the same time, he is gentle, and modest - look how he acted after we went and got that gun. And how he went too - just as though he were going up into the hills to look for mushrooms.
- Kikuchiyo: [sarcastically] Fascinating. I'm not bored at all, I swear.
- Kikuchiyo: You all make great scarecrows. Problem is, the enemy isn't a bunch of sparrows and crows!
- Heihachi Hayashida: [after Kikuchiyo made the peasants exit their homes by sounding the alarm, and scolded them] We are now seven.
- Katsushiro: A boy should be drilling, not picking flowers!
- [He points sternly at Shino with the flowers he just picked, looks down at the flowers, realizes his own hypocrisy and throws them to the ground]
- [first lines]
- Bandit second-in-command: We'll take this place next.
- Bandit Chief: We took it last autumn. They haven't got anything worth taking yet. Let's wait.
- Farmer Manzo: Consider who we're dealing with here. Give a wolf a taste of your leg and he'll ask for your hand.
- Shichiroji: That bandit said their fort...
- Kyuzo: It's hardly a fort.
- Kikuchiyo: It's full of holes, like Yohei's underwear.
- Kikuchiyo: What are you making?
- Heihachi Hayashida: A flag.
- Kikuchiyo: A flag?
- Heihachi Hayashida: Something to hold up, hoist high, you know? Something to stir our fighting spirit.
- [Heihachi presents his design; he has drawn six circles, one triangle, and at the bottom, the Japanese character "ta." Kikuchiyo points to the "ta"]
- Kikuchiyo: What do those symbols mean?
- Heihachi Hayashida: That means "rice" but it can also mean "farmer".
- Kikuchiyo: What about those circles?
- Heihachi Hayashida: They're us.
- Kikuchiyo: What the hell? Why aren't I there? There's only six of them!
- Heihachi Hayashida: The triangle is you, Sir Kikuchiyo.
- Shichiroji: Good one!
- [the samurai burst out laughing]
- Kikuchiyo: Hey, everybody. Give your wives plenty of lovin' tonight, you hear?
- [Villagers and Samurai laugh]
- Shichiroji: Manzo, don't be angry. When the dawn threatens our very lives, the weight of it makes us all a little reckless.
- Old Woman: I don't want to live any more. But I'm afraid the next world will be terrible, too...
- Heihachi Hayashida: No, no. It's paradise. No bandits or anything. It's very nice.
- Kikuchiyo: [loudly] How do you know? Ever been dead?
- Heihachi Hayashida: [to Kikuchiyo] You needn't yell at me.
- Kikuchiyo: [to Rikichi, who is spending the night in the stable] It's me. I'm sleeping here from now on. Those guys cramp my style.
- [Rikichi starts to hurry out]
- Kikuchiyo: Stop cowering, you idiot! This is your place! You hand over your house and sleep in a barn and you still can't stand up for yourself! Go back to sleep!
- [He grabs the startled farmer and hurls him onto the straw. He lies down on the straw himself, beside Rikichi, with a straw mat over his body for a blanket. He sighs]
- Kikuchiyo: Brings back memories.
- Gorobei Katayama: Where shall we start our patrol?
- Kambei Shimada: The spot that worries us the most, of course.
- [Kambei and Gorobei arrive at a campfire near one of the roads, and find Kikuchiyo lying on the ground, his head propped up against a log and his feet resting on another log. He is supposed to be on guard, but is sound asleep. His sword is stuck upright in a pile of logs. Kambei and Gorobei exchange glances as they approach their snoring comrade. Softly Kambei comes forward and takes the sword away. The two hide behind a straw hut. Gorobei throws a rock, which wakes Kikuchiyo with a start. Kikuchiyo scrambles to the pile where his sword had been]
- Kikuchiyo: Who's there?
- [He feels around for the sword, only to find it gone. He grabs a log from the pile and brandishes it]
- Kikuchiyo: Who's there? Come on out!
- Kambei Shimada: Kikuchiyo.
- [Kikuchiyo whirls around to see Kambei and Gorobei standing behind him]
- Kambei Shimada: You're lucky it was us. If it had been the bandits...
- [He tosses Kikuchiyo his confiscated Nodachi]
- Kambei Shimada: ... You'd be looking for your head.
- [Kikuchiyo sinks down to his knees by the fire. He is so ashamed he can't speak]
- Woman Farmer: Is there no god to protect us? Land tax, forced labor, war, drought and now bandits! The gods want us farmers dead!
- Kambei Shimada: We will engage the decisive battle. Fight bravely, Katsushiro... because you now are a real man!
- [All the peasants laugh]
- [Kikuchiyo drags the bound bandit into a circle of vengeful, murderous farmers, laughing gleefully, and occasionally delivering a vengeful kick to his prisoner]
- Bandit: Help!
- [the bandit continues to struggle as he is dragged into the circle]
- Bandit: Help! Help me!
- [the samurai are desperately trying to hold back the crowd. The bandit's cries of 'Help!' continue on in the background. Kambei rushes into the circle]
- Kambei Shimada: Back off! He's confessed. He's begging for his life. We can't just cut him to pieces.
- [Heihachi tries to restrain a peasant carrying a bamboo spear]
- Peasant: Leave out of this!
- [Kambei tries to hold back Rikichi]
- Rikichi: Let me at him!
- [Suddenly, everyone stops and looks off-screen. The noise dies down. The old woman enters the vicious circle, carrying a hoe. Kambei and the other samurai watch as she shuffles past the silent crowd. Gisaku approaches the crowd and begins to speak]
- Gisaku: Let her avenge her son's death in her own way. Make way there. Somebody help her!
- [Rikichi pushes past Kambei and rushes forward. The other villagers follow him. The samurai turn away dejectedly]
- Young Gambler 1: Look at him sobbing.
- Young Gambler 2: Misses his wifey.
- Young Gambler 1: I'd pay good money to watch the two of 'em going at it.
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