The Blade of the Immortal is a movie about a Samurai who can't die. He ends up killing some people, including his sister's husband. His sister goes crazy, so instead of committing seppuku, he runs away with her and tries to keep her alive. But she gets killed by some bounty hunters after him. He manages to kill them, but is terribly wounded himself and expects to die, but some mysterious old woman infects him with blood worms that knit his body back together.
Now, what I think would happen under such circumstances and what happened in the movie diverge considerably.
If he got married and had children, there would, of course, be sadness at the death of loved ones- but there would always be loved ones living. Always another generation- more descendants to shepherd through life.
The movie wasn't like that at all. Instead he was living in a shack outside of town and wasn't doing much in the way of human interaction until the mysterious old lady told a girl who looked like his sister to go hire him as a bodyguard. A lot of crazy fight scenes ensue. And his will to live is basically revived in the sense that he is determined to live for the girl and keep her from harm.
It was a fun movie, but the missing pieces, and many of the assumptions just remind me of what's been stolen from us. We live in a bureaucratic age. If we save money, central banks allow the value of what we save leak away from us, so we are screwed unless we come up with some sophisticated plan. The effects of this broken, modern world led to many of the assumptions made in the movie.
I think the impulse to build something that would last through the generations would become very strong in anyone who knew they were going to live for a very long time- potentially forever. When an old man plants a tree, he can only imagine what it will be like when it is fully grown. Wouldn't the impulse become stronger if you knew you'd likely be there to see it?
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