The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai is a 2003 Hollywood movie. The Last Samurai is a mixture of fact. The film’s plot is loosely based on the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigo Takamori, and also on the story of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the Boshin War. The life style and the war tactics shown in this movie are those of the era before 1543. . An actual battle of that period was only a little different from that of American or European army, the only difference being a katana to be waved for soldiers to charge instead of a saber.
This movie seemed for many people to have all the necessary ingredients: beautiful Japanese landscapes and costumes, larger than life battlefield sequences, and eastern philosophy. This movie also contains scenes where you can see how samurai warriors were dressed in their specific armor and scenes showing traditional samurai swords. However, it is not a movie that celebrates the power of the Japanese samurai sword, as Kill Bill is.
The Last Samurai tells about the broken United States Civil War veteran (Cruise) who travels as a mercenary to Japan soon after the overthrow of the old Shogunate and the restoration of imperial rule in 1868. He ultimately rediscovers his honor by joining a samurai rebellion against the encroaching world of the West. The Meiji era was a time of change as Japan emerged from 200 years of self-imposed isolation and began to shed some of its traditions. The samurai had served as a standing army with no one to fight for the last 200 years. Now they represented the past.
The movie rebellion is led by the samurai named Katsumoto, who is loosely based on the real-life samurai warrior Takamori Saigo. Saigo, known for his obstinate conservatism, supported the Emperor in the Meiji coup, but then led an 1877 revolt against the government in which his followers were defeated by imperial troops drawn from the peasantry and equipped with modern arms. Saigo committed suicide. Today, Saigo is a folk hero, a symbol of devotion to principle. In real life, he was also a pampered aristocrat bent on retaining his elitist standing.
The idealized image of the samurai brave and noble warriors was the one to survive , though the samurai were no more courageous or loyal or wise than anybody else. however, they did have something that the others didn’t. they had privileges and they choose to fight for those privileges. Unfortunately, they are defeated by the new Japan. It’s the new Japan overcoming the old Japan. however, the samurai may have been defeated in the late 19th century, but their virtuous and noble image has been carefully molded ever since. It’s an idealized image that’s been pushed onto the entire Japanese people.
Samurai images are brought out again and again, reminding people how it is for men to have such virtues as the ones in bushido, although the samurais weren’t always as full of virtues as they are depicted in movies.
Written by admin on January 13th, 2007 with
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