Four Horses
The opening shot of the film is of four men on horses, each of them facing a different direction. The imagery foreshadows the fact that Ichimonji and his three sons Taro, Jiro and Saburo all having different points of view on life and will go their own ways. We see their horses in profile on the crest of a hill while waiting to embark on a hunt. The image sets the scene for the thematic and narrative elements of the film.
Ichimonji the Ghost
After suffering a great trauma from witnessing the battle that breaks out at the Third Castle, Ichimonji descends into madness. While he was once a formidable older gentleman with a stern expression, he is now pale as a ghost, his air disturbed, and his expression stricken and hauntingly possessed. He looks more like a ghost than a man, as he wanders through the countryside, searching for belonging, but haunted by his past sins.
Violence
Throughout the film, Kurosawa shoots intense but often cartoonish images of violence. For instance, in the battle at the Third Castle, we see various atrocities—piles of bodies, men with arrows shot into their eye sockets, bucketloads of blood dripping down—yet this violent imagery is less graphic than over-the-top, meant to convey the horrors of war, without transmitting the violence to the viewer. The blood is an electric red color, and we cannot hear the cries of the victims of violence. In this way, Kurosawa makes the violence almost theatrical, a representation of violence rather than a realistic depiction of it.
Tsurumaru in the ruins
The film ends, at it began, with silhouette. At the end, after nearly every central character has died, the blind Tsurumaru stands at the ruins of the castle that was once his family's, waiting for his sister Sué to return. He is completely alone, and he has dropped the image of the Buddha Sué gave him, and stands in a plaintive, desirous pose near a ledge.
