This film has one of the best endings I’ve ever seen, starting with the sword fight as remembered by the woodcutter. Up until this point, the fights have looked the way fights usually look in movies. But here, from the moment we see the samurai and bandit’s two sword tips enter the frame, trembling in their shaky hands, we’re in a much more believable world, where people are afraid to kill and be killed. And then there’s this conversation between the priest and the commoner:

The priest: It’s horrifying. If men don’t trust each other, this earth might as well be hell.

The commoner: That’s right. This world is hell.

The priest: No, I believe in men. [Pressing himself against the wall in anguish.] I don’t want this place to be hell.

That moment when the priest presses himself against the wall and says “I don’t want this place to be hell” sums up pretty much everything I’ve ever tried to express in my own work. The happy ending, where the woodcutter walks off with the abandoned baby as the sun comes out, always makes me cry.