Jidai-geki is a genre of media which rose in popularity during post-war Japan which most commonly takes place in the Edo Period (1603-1868) of Japanese history. These films embody the spirit of the way of the samurai, called "Bushido". Bushido, in the vision of Nitobe Inazō, is characterized by righteousness, heroic courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, loyalty, and self-control.

Miyamoto Musashi in Samurai starts his journey through the trilogy as a "wandering soul" where he has a lost spirit of a samurai but he progresses his way to training and dedicating himself to being a samurai. He moves to the point where the Shogun wants to hire him, however he declines. This is a very revolutionary act in that he is a rōnin and it is standard of rōnin to want to be hired under a master, which is typical of a samurai. However, he knows in himself that he does not need this validation in order to be content with himself as a samurai. He takes the principles of bushidō in self development in order to move from this "wandering soul" character to a samurai skilled enough to be sought after by the top samurai in the country and not needing to even take the offer to feel content. At the same time, he is challenged by Sasaki Kojiro, who is also regarded as one of the best samurai in the country. Musashi tells him that he will duel him in a year, and after a year he meets him. Musashi wins the duel, however instead of expressing feelings of victory, he cries on his way back home, saying that he won't ever find a samurai as good as him. He has adopted the principle of respect, in that he values the skill of his opponents and is humble about his victories.

Toshiro Mifune plays the role of Sanjuro in the films Yojimbo and Sanjuro as an extremely skilled, yet eccentric, rōnin. In Yojimbo he wanders into a town, where an old man tells him there is a conflict between two rival criminal gangs that is repressing the town. However, rather than react how the "ideal" samurai would and immediately respond with a decisive benevolent effort, Sanjuro tells the old man that he is going to try and make a profit. However, by the end of the film, we see that Sanjuro did not actually make a profit, but liberated the town from both gangs. In a subplot of the film, he meets a man who had his wife kidnapped by someone, to which he replied that people like the man made him sick, but he later executed a plan where he was able to save the mans wife from the kidnapper and simultaneously give them money. In Sanjuro he saves a group of "ideal" samurai from being killed, but over the course of the film, he commits acts that are so unseemingly of a samurai that the group he saved doubts him when he says that he is going to "join the other side" and leaves. A couple of these acts are that he asked for money in compensation for saving them and he called an old lady stupid. Despite this, he inevitably proves to them that he is a greater samurai, both by skill, but of a trope within the film that the "ideal" samurai would want to immediately rush in to defeat the enemy which would inevitably fail, while Sanjuro would wait to analyze the situation and make better decisions. Also, at the end of the film, when he defeats an opponent that challenged him, he did not celebrate his victory but acted in respect for his fallen opponent. These events show that despite his outward appearance of not being an ideal samurai that lives by bushidō, he does in fact live by its principles, most notably benevolence, respect, and self-control.

Ghost Dog tells the story of an assassin in the modern age who read Hagakure and lives by the Way of the Samurai. While this is not a Jidai-geki nor explicitly a samurai film, it shows the embodiment of the spirit of the samurai throughout the film with quotes directly from Hagakure embedded in the film. The main theme from Hagakure expressed in the film is loyalty and respect. Ghost Dog always makes note as he is talking to his boss that he "doesn't mean to do him no respect". Even at the end of the film when his boss is trying to kill Ghost Dog, he allows him to do so because he knows that his boss is trying to restore honor to his own boss. There are even scenes throughout the movie where Ghost Dog is depicted acting how a real samurai would. He has a shrine that he bows at, there is a scene where he is practicing with a katana, he draws and "sheathes" his pistol as if it was a katana, and there is a scene of him taking apart and caring for his gun just as how a samurai would maintain his own sword. Every action that he takes, he always actively thinks about the bushidō code and he lives by it up until his death.