As an answer to my question above, I got informed of the following... of which I can only say... GOODY GOODY GOODY!!!

Harry,  

I've sent a few things in before, probably not of much interest. Which'll be why they weren't printed. But this might actually be of interest.  

You were wondering about Tom Cruise unleashing...Motherfucking Death, was it? With a...what was it... Lightening Sword? You wondered about what we might see regarding, what should one say...bodily harm?  

Well, something tells me that this movie is not going to pussy out.  

Ok, now the bit I hate: I have a friend who...blah, blah, blah.  

My buddy did work on the Last Samurai. He tells me that the prosthetics guys on this movie have come up with a new kind of limb prosthetic that is somehow made to be cut anywhere you want, at random, and the cross section will look like a real severed limb, blood, bone and all!  

I don't know how they do it, but it sounds very cool (if dismemberment does it for you, heh). I heard stories of their make up boss testing it out with a real samurai sword, basically unleashing himself on random parts of fake limbs to test it out and it looked liked someone had been hacked up. Any part you slice, a  bloody cross section will result. The fight choreographers can basically go for it on this one, I think.  

So, if you are making a samurai movie and you have this new physical effect at your disposal, would you pussy out?  

Nuff said.  

I don't know how they's done it, but I know they's done it!  

Swokes Swokes.