该片围绕“1983年虎山监狱暴动事件”展开。

温暖慵懒的夏日午后，汤姆和杰瑞这对冤家难得停止了追逐战，各自趴在院子的角落里呼呼大睡。就在此时，一个影子出现在院子上空，那是一只傻乎乎的小啄木鸟。它落在汤姆的身上，毫无畏惧，少待片刻便准备回到大树上的窝里。被吵醒好梦的汤姆十分生气，他挡住了啄木鸟的去路，打算好好惩罚这个不速之客。他们的争吵声惊醒了杰瑞，杰瑞对汤姆仗势欺人的做法很不满意，与使用蒙地冲上前去，用他机灵的脑瓜和智慧惩罚那只欺负人的大猫。当然汤姆绝不会善罢甘休，他也想出各种招数对抗杰瑞和啄木鸟，无奈每次都以失败告终……

明治政府建立二十余年，新时代虽已来临，却似乎与人们心中——尤其是维新志士心中的那个理想国度相差甚远。国家仍处在大时代的动荡惶恐之中，战争的阴影仍笼罩在日本的上空。当年的浪漫剑客如今纷纷尘埃落定：弥彦成长为正直善良的剑客；左之助也少却了青春孟浪，变得沧桑；剑心的儿子剑路同样拜入比古清十郎的门下，誓要成为绝世高手，却与父亲分外隔膜；剑心接受政府的任务赶赴大陆战场，为了赎回前半生的罪过而疲于奔命，逆刃刀从此封存，家中只留下病弱的阿薰苦苦等待。这不再是关于明治剑客的浪漫谭，这是一个英雄迟暮的哀婉诗篇……

Ono’s work related destruction to interpersonal, often intimate, human relations. This element was particularly thought-provoking in ‹Cut Piece›, one of many actions she did as DIAS [Destruction in Art Symposium]. Ono had first done the performance in 1964, in Japan, and again at Carnegie Hall, in New York, in 1965. Ono sat motionless on the stage after inviting the audience to come up and cut away her clothing, covering her breasts at the moemnt of unbosoming. ‹Cut Piece› entailed a disrobing, a denouement of the reciprocity between exhibitionism and scopic desires, between victim and assailant, between sadist and masochist: and, as a heterosexual herselft, Ono unveiled the gendered relationship of male and female subjects as objects for each other.(source: Kristine Stiles,«Uncorrupted Joy: International Art Actions,» in: Out of Actions: between performance and the object, 1949–1979, Paul Schimmel (ed.), MoCA Los Angeles, New York/London, 1998, p. 278.)