Ken Watanabe credited as playing...
Katsumoto
- Katsumoto: The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.
- Katsumoto: I have introduced myself. You have introduced yourself. This is a very good conversation.
- Katsumoto: The Emperor could not hear my words. His army will come. For nine hundred years, my ancestors have protected our people. Now... I have failed them.
- Algren: So you will take your own life? In shame? Shame for a life of service? Discipline? Compassion?
- Katsumoto: The way of the Samurai is not necessary anymore.
- Algren: Necessary? What could be more necessary?
- Katsumoto: I will die by the sword. My own, or my enemy's.
- Algren: Then let it be your enemy's.
- [Algren and Katsumoto ride up to Bagley, who sees that Algren has turned against him]
- Colonel Bagley: Good God... Sir, the Imperial Army of Japan demands your surrender. If you and your fellas lay down your arms, you will not be harmed.
- Katsumoto: This is not possible, as Mr. Omura knows.
- Colonel Bagley: Captain Algren. We will show you no quarter. You ride against us, and you're the same as they are.
- Algren: I'll look for you on the field.
- Katsumoto: And who was your general?
- Algren: Don't you have a rebellion to lead?
- Katsumoto: People in your country do not like conversation?
- Algren: He was a lieutenant colonel. His name was Custer.
- Katsumoto: I know this name. He killed many warriors
- Algren: Oh, yes. Many warriors.
- Katsumoto: So he was a good general.
- Algren: No. No, he wasn't a good general. He was arrogant and foolhardy. And he got massacred because he took a single battalion against two thousand angry Indians.
- Katsumoto: Two thousand Indians? How many men for Custer?
- Algren: Two hundred and eleven.
- Katsumoto: I like this General Custer.
- Algren: He was a murderer who fell in love with his own legend. And his troopers died for it.
- Katsumoto: I think this is a very good death.
- Algren: Well, maybe you can have one just like it someday.
- Algren: There was once a battle at a place called Thermopylae, where three hundred brave Greeks held off a Persian army of a million men... a million, you understand this number?
- Katsumoto: I understand this number.
- Algren: For two days, the Greeks made them pay so dearly that the Persian army lost all taste for battle and was defeated soon after.
- Algren: What do you want?
- Katsumoto: To know my enemy.
- Algren: I've seen what you do to your enemies.
- Katsumoto: The warriors in your country do not kill?
- Algren: They don't cut the heads off defeated, kneeling men.
- Katsumoto: General Hasegawa asked me to help him end his life. A samurai cannot stand the shame of defeat. I was honored to cut off his head.