Kagemusha ending explained

What happens

At Nagashino, Katsuyori sends the Takeda cavalry against massed gunfire and it is destroyed. The cast-out thief charges the guns with a spear, is shot, crawls to a river, and dies. The clan falls, and he is discarded.

The last image

The thief's body drifts down the river, beside the fallen Takeda banner.

What it says

The ending shows that an illusion can hold a world together but cannot save the man inside it. Katsuyori's pride and the new guns end the old order, and the thief's death shows how it treats those beneath it.