They call this movie Samurai Saga. Maybe it should be called Samurai Cyrano or
Cyrano de Samurai because it is a pretty close copy of the 1950 Academy Award Winning classic Cyrano de Bergerac. Depending on your attitude toward the original American version in 1950 or depending on your opinion of Japanese movies you can either praise it or condemn it. 

My wife is Japanese. She and I like Japanese movies. We are fans of Toshiro Mifune. But my wife so far isn't too crazy about Samurai Saga and neither am I. Mostly that's because of Mifune's appearance. Somehow we can overlook Jose Ferrer's nose (preceeeding him by a quarter of an hour) and concentrate on the story. But for poor old Toshiro Mifune we can't yet accept his wide nose with flaring nostrils. My wife says that a Japanese samurai would never, never whisper sweet nothings into the ear of his lady love. Perhaps we'll become more political correct Japanese with further viewing.

By the way, it might be a good idea to watch the Jose Ferrer version before watching this one just to reinfore in your memory the different stages of the movie. Then as you watch Samurai Saga you can mentally compare how they transleted them over to the Japanese version. (I have uploaded the 1950 version some time ago.) If the subtitles come on automatically, and you don't like that, remember all you have to do is change the name of the subtitle file by inserting a little "x" or something just to make the name different from the video file. (Incidentally, I have perfect hearing, but I like to display subtitles on everything I watch.)