The woodsman recounts how he discovers the body of the samurai, tells the police, and comes to the courthouse to hear the witnesses. First up is the bandit. He sees the samurai and his wife on the road but feigns disinterest until a providential wind rouses him. He desires the wife and so connives to trick the samurai, ties him up, returns for the wife and then rapes her in the presence of the samurai. She at first resists him, but then submits. Afterward she wants to go with the bandit, then convinces the bandit to allow the samurai to defend his honor. After a mighty struggle, the bandit kills the samurai. The wife runs away.
Having been found hiding in a temple, the wife is brought to court to tell her side of the story. She recounts being brought to where her husband has been tied up, and being forced to yield to the bandit. Having been shamed in front of her husband, she tells them they must decide who she will go with. When she approaches her husband she recoils from his obvious contempt for her. She become angry at his failure to defend her honor. The bandit takes off. The wife realizing she has been abandoned by both of them, kills her husband with her pearl inlaid knife. She wails at her circumstances.
At this point a medium is brought to the court to channel the dead samurai. He laments his fall into darkness. His version is that after being foolish enough to be tricked by the bandit, and being forced to witness the rape of his wife, his shame, not only with his own foolishness, but also his wife's unwilling to commit suicide for her failure to resist the bandit; as well as her abandonment, leaves him no other choice but to regain his honor through suicide. He then kills himself with his wife's blade.
At this point the woodsman blurts out that the samurai was killed with a sword. The commoner goads the woodsman into admitting that he had done more than just find the body, that he had witnessed the whole affair. After explaining that he didn't want to get involved he told what he had seen. Turns out that after the rape, the bandit wasn't quite sure what to do; take the woman; leave the woman? The samurai was scornful of his wife, telling her the honorable thing to do would be to kill herself. The wife while weeping through most of this, lets out a laughing scream and curses the bandit and her husband, calling them weak and cowardly. By questioning their courage and manhood, she shames them into a fight it's obvious neither one wants, and as expected there is a lot of running and wild swinging of the sort you'd get from two people deathly afraid of being killed. after exhausting themselves circumstances find the bandit standing over the samurai with his sword ready to strike, but he clearly doesn't want to, and the samurai pleads that he doesn't want to die. The bandit plunges home the sword and runs away, as does the wife.
The woodsman doesn't understand why they would tell different versions of what happened. The priest doesn't understand either, but the commoner isn't surprised. That moment they hear a baby's cry and discover an abandoned child. The commoner takes the kimono left to keep the child warm. The others are shocked he would steal from a child. He mocks them saying the child was unwanted and left to die. He then accuses the woodsman of stealing the pearl inlaid knife of the wife; calling him a hypocrite and a liar. The priest takes the child appalled at the two of them; the commoner laughs at him; the woodsman, claiming that he already has six children at home can support another and takes the child. The priest, unconvincingly, sates his belief in humanity has been restored.
If you're looking for the redemption of humanity in this film you'll be disappointed. It is not uplifting. It does however make a damning commentary on how people choose to see their life and actions and how those views can differ markedly from what we would call literal truth, assuming we would know it. Each character represent an archetype and plays to that stereotype. The honest woodsman, the noble priest, the honorable samurai, the good wife, and the free wheeling bandit. The commoner is humanity in it's unvarnished form; selfish, grubbing, lacking in guile, unapologetic, and certain we've all got something to hide. It's not a particularly pleasant picture to see, but that's the point. Even in their worst moment, our characters seek to delude not only us but themselves as well. The bandit plays to his audience at the court with bravado and orneriness; believing that's what they expect to see. Never mind that when we first see him he is driving himself through the sand by the river, feverishly trying to scrape away the murder that hangs on him. The samurai sees himself as an honorable man put in a situation where the only acceptable outcome is suicide. The fact that he despises his wife, is not a prototypical samurai warrior, and is fearful of dying doesn't jibe with the social construct of how he is expected to behave.
The wife is stuck; there's no way she's going to come out of this in a good way. Not in that time; not in that society. She seeks sympathy at the court knowing that her life is irretrievably broken, but her character conspires against her and she seems pathetic and grasping. The woodsman and the priest expect to see society and it's participants in a clear cut way. The ambiguity and falsity of the characters at the court leave them unmoored and unsure how to navigate. The commoner sees them all as phonies and fools. He recognizes the fallacy of humanity believing itself to be better than it really is. He's not afraid to tell them what they are or to accept his own selfishness. He knows to put himself first; that life is hard and capricious; full of want and desire, and quick to end, whether good or bad. Sooner or later the reaper finds you, and no amount of subterfuge or wailing will save you. You do what you have to to survive.
Maybe it's the darkness that pervades the end of the film that is unsettling; there is no pat answers or happy ending. No one comes out of it wiser or for the better. They only shake their heads and wonder why and have no answers.
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