Follows the fluctuating fortunes of three ronin in feudal Japan who wander from castle to castle, selling their services to whichever lord will fill their rice bowls. Though they use the servants' entrance, they still feel themselves bound by the samurai code of Bushido; and this tension leads to tragedy.
Cinema Atlas Connection
Yeah, because it’s a mosaic. It has a dreamlike quality and I think Fellini was an influence on us, you know, La Dolce Vita and his other films. He was a master of that, and I was going for something that had a certain amount of reality, but also a certain sense of unreality as well. I mean, it’s a little like a dream, The Wanderers, because there’s so many different characters, so many different things happening, and then some of the scenes are, you know, very realistic, but others are kind of
Fellini was an influence on us, you know, La Dolce Vita and his other films. He was a master of that, and I was going for something that had a certain amount of reality, but also a certain sense of unreality as well.
— not explicitly named · Collider interview with Philip Kaufman (2017)