Q:Build a movie plot around this: What does kanji mean? 30 years old
A:
In 1860, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate,[a] a ronin (masterless samurai) wanders through a desolate Japanese countryside. While stopping at a farmhouse, he overhears an elderly couple lamenting that their only son has given up farm labouring in order to run off and join the rogues who have descended on a nearby town that has become divided by a gang war. The stranger heads to the town where he meets the owner of a small Izakaya who advises him to leave. He tells the ronin that the two warring clans are led by Ushitora and Seibei. The silk merchant and mayor back Seibei while the sake brewer is allied with Ushitora. But after sizing up the situation, the stranger says he intends to stay as the town would be better off with both sides dead.He first convinces the weaker Seibei to hire him as a swordsman by effortlessly killing three of Ushitora's men. When asked his name, he sees a mulberry field and states his name is Kuwabatake Sanjuro ( Kuwabatake = mulberry field). Although Sanjuro is a proper given name (and therefore could very well be the ronin's true name), when spoken out loud it can also be interpreted as Sanjuro (note the different last kanji ), which means "thirty years old" ( sanju = thirty, ro = years old)). Aware of this double meaning (and that those he's speaking to know that he used Kuwabatake as a pseudo-surname), he slyly quips: "Though I'm closer to forty, actually".Seibei decides that with the ronin's swordsmanship (a service acquired with a large payment in ryo) the time is right to fight Ushitora. But Sanjuro eavesdrops on Seibei's wife who orders her son to kill him after the upcoming raid so that they will not have to pay his fee. Sanjuro leads his faction to attack the other but then "resigns" leaving Seibei to his fate. But before the two side clash, the untimely arrival of a Bugyo (an Edo official) forces both sides to make a bloodless retreat.Eventually the Bugyo is called away because a government...