JAPAN FORUM

[Chie]

When I first heard about a movie featuring Tom Cruise with some Japanese Samurai actions, I immediately felt sick of the idea of another Hollywood movie full of stereotyped and misinterpreted depiction about Japan which dedicates to the number of confused people around the world. I mean, how many times did we Japanese audience feel like screaming to the screen, “That’s not us!” or “We don’t normally do that!”, when every time seeing a Chinese-American actors speaking weird Japanese and demonstrating emphasised eccentric behavior as a Japanese in Hollywood movies?

But this blockbuster movie truly was the exception from those typical culturally-biased Hollywood Japanese movies. This is one of the few movies that don’t embarrass discerning viewers. At the same time it’s full of exciting actions, this movie is more of a cultural one that successfully conveys the convincing beauty of various aspects of Japan and its culture.

Throughout the movie, the beauty of spiritual strength has been the core subject, represented by the dignified Samurai spirit or the static strength seen in Taka’s (the only female leading character in the movie) reserved yet determined attitude.



Visually, the seasonal sights of Japan are truly fascinating. The fantastic blooming cherry blossom upon which Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) reads a poem, a breathtakingly magical sight of snow falling on the quiet solemn shrine… it confirms my appreciation of the absolute beauty of our distinctive seasons. We also get to see pieces of Japanese culture that we don’t experience too often in our modern lives like calligraphy, meditation, kendo woven into ancient people’s lifestyles.

The leading Japanese actors are all so good by which I believe the quality of this movie is supported to the great extent. Ken Watanabe as Katsumoto is specially so outstanding that he is rather a main actor than Tom Cruise. He shows us great humanity as well as magnificent Samurai spirit.

Although there are a few realistically questionable scenes like only Tom Cruise impossibly survives till the end, which is Hollywood’s inevitable pattern, they don’t disturb the whole movie.

Although it’s supposed to be my own culture of my own country, I realized myself objectively stunned and inspired by Japanese culture almost like as an outsider. As the whole movie is led through the eye of Algren (Tom Cruise), a foreigner, and because I’ve been having so much overseas exposure in my life that I have less familiarity to Japanese mentality and cultural aspects. Today we barely inherit the ancient Japanese spirituality today; I felt the strong adoration for the country of Japan and the whole culture it holds. If I wasn’t Japanese, I think I would definitely have been interested in the attractively profound Japanese world and had a strong yearning to visit the country and know more about its culture after watching the movie. Even being Japanese, I do. This movie made me miss and adore my country over the ocean, where I expect to find pieces of beautiful culture that enchanted me in the movie. My initial worry about the stereotyped Japanese culture in Hollywood movie was blown away; I left the cinema with the deep adoration and pride for the beautiful culture of my country.

[bubna]

Chie, I too enjoyed the Last Samuria. But did you know that most of the filming was done in New Zealand...... But I also have a Question .... Is the film historically based?......For example did the emporer really confiscate all the rail assets...

Bubna

[Craig Fryer]

When I first heard about this film, I thought they were going to make Tom "The Last Samuria" they completely distroying the whole story. Fortunately this was not the case and in reality Tom was not really the main character (may be this is why he did not receive a nomination for this role in the Oscars). The story is really told through the eyes of Nathan Algren.

The real main character is Ken Watanabe as Katsumoto, but since he is not a star in Hollywood he would hardly be awarded this position.

[Hiroko]

I liked the movie. but it is not historically correct. pretty much everything was made up. i.e. railway company owners, timeframe, samurai fighting soldiers. japanese will generally not fight other japanese. So all of it was made up. Even the costumes.... names of people etc.

Remember kids! it is just a movie!

Another thing which was funny. If a Japanese guy went to the US and killed an American, would he get to live with the dead soldier's wife. and later he would get to sleep with her? hahaha....

I can hardly imagine, an Iraqi killing the US president and then the person sleeping in the whitehouse with the US president's wife. Get real! It's propaganda silly children - from the producers.

it's a movie!!! But otherwise it is entertaining.

[annoluce]

I've seen the movie.
I'm not japanese but it left me disappointed. It is "flat", yet not so accurate as it seems.
Yes, japanese people have been fighting japanese people for over 1500 years, until Tokugawa power established a forced peace in 1603. but this is not the point.
Apart of the beautiful scenary (it seems japan but it's not!), and the beautiful characters, the reproduction of the late Japanese situation at the beginning of the Meiji restauration seems too poor.
The samurai as clans had been leading Japan for centuries but at the late Tokugawa period, those clans were not just "families and villages", with great spirit and honour, like the movie descripts them, as honour and myth people. There were instead Feudal remnants lords, that lost their ancient battle culture in favour of a life of comforts,leisure and privileges. There was the well established "buke", not anylonger used to fight, there was plenty of burocracy and the lords were not so honourable..
What's more, "samurai" (bushi) culture was not so plenty of myth. Remember that buke has been destroying, raping, killing, stealing, from lower classes for centuries.
Also, the link between bushi and zen it's not so tight and straightforward as the film describes. Zen was just a means to the bushi to fight and kill better. Remember that Nobunaga had been conducing a hard destruction of all zen temple, killing thousands of monks. Katsumoto praying in the temple seems just more hollywood escamotage than historic truth.
From the technical point of view, costumes are accurate, but not always properly dressed. I've seen a "nodowa" dressed by a warrior very large and shaking..Bleah. It would have meant sure and sudden death for him..An instant "kami tatewari" cutting his head. Not to mention officers and leaders going into battle with no kabuto and mempo..But this is a hollywood need to show Watanabe and Cruise faces..
You do not find a ronin in the movie..There were thousands of them marauding back and forth over the country..And so on..
The movie is enjoyable but if you want a real flavour of japanese late tokugawa life, you shoud look somewhere else.
I suggest a master piece of accuracy and humour: Zatoichi by Kitano..Just wonderful.
You can see ronin binding sage-o over shoulders and sleeves before a bokuto fight..I was really surprised.

[zero]

Dudes. do any of you know where I can find shock absorbers for a 1976 Volvo?

[janina c.]

[size=18]i felt that the movie glorified tom cruise too much and that it depicted the japanese as oriental whimps. while its true that i am not a japanese national, i have spent ten months in japan as an exchange student. i more or less have an idea of the japanese psyche. i guess being asian and sharing similar characteristics with the japnese, it does hit a soft spot with regards to how westerners show ignorance and bias towards non caucasian nations.

i really hated the movie and i felt like walking out of the movie theater coz every minute of it was pure torture. i definitely wanted my money back. [/size][color=red][/color]

[Andrew]

Hey there People!

Well, Sorry I can't help with your Shocks 'zero' LOL!!!!!

Yeah, I saw the Movie, I quite liked it! I guess It made me miss my X Girlfriend who went back to Malaysia.

Though one of my friends was inspired to become a hardcore Buddist, which can't really hurt, I guess. better than being an American Christan and Bombing people! ha...

(Obviously I'm not relgious) Hmmm...

I found out I was going to be working in Japan in a high position 2 days after I saw the movie.. So it was interesting none the less, and yeah sure, all hollywood movies are going to make sure a star is going to make it through, especially someone like Tom right? but hey, was it in the original script or book? eh...

I enjoyed it! Thought it had some pretty cool Characters and they were well shown.....

So, when I goto Japan I know I'll be researching into the History of the Samuri......

There we go, thats my say..
Cheers (D)'s!

[Musashi]

[annoluce]

Well I don't mean to spoil the invaluable link between Zen (meditation in general) and martial arts. I practice kenjutsu (art of the sword) and I practiced also zazen.
I just wanted to remark that the modern impact of zen on martial arts it's different from the one it had in the japan feudal era.
Bushi were not used to find a "spiritual" pattern inside meditation, as today we do. They were commited from their daymios to be always up-to-date in martial arts and combat efficience. They thus found in meditation a way to refine this combat skills. They did not search for spiritual way. Zen monks did. Zen monks were also fighters but this is another story.
In modern era (meiji and later) martial arts have become more and more related to zen. But this is an evolution. Warriors were just warriors, addicted to their privileges, and often not used to think much. Just to obey (cfr Hagakure).

[ncje]

I liked The Last Samurai and what it set out to do - entertain. Movies are about entertainment - people should stop looking at movies as if they are meant to form or pose as any substance of reality. Thats my main point........ it did look at some of the nicer sides of Japanese culture.. yes it mixed them together a bit ...... but its not a total view and as I already said movies arent reference text. I too was glad that Tom Cruise's character became secondary in the context of the total movie.

Anyway thats my opinion

[Kiba]

Even that Tom Cruise is in the movie doesn't change the fact that THERE ARE TOO FEW JAPANESE MOVIES IN THE WORLD (cannot understand why, homecountry Nihon rocks).
But if the movie did really suck (haven't yet seen it) it's only more bad reputation to our beloved Japan. (they really make me angry when they talk about Japan in that stupid way )
I really do hate mots of the americans (except real-otaku's), always making things worse, taking all the glory from everyone. "Oh yeah, and we fought in there and there and won and we are like sooo cool, we are the best son of a bitches alive!" So if they ruined that movie too I will

-Protect Japan!-
-Nihon rules! SUKI DA! -


(Do not get all offended by this.)

...Really, only samurai for me is Ken-san, dear Kenshin!

Wonder why I even came here...

[zero]

3 points for Kiba

[nafutari]

Hmm. I tried to try to stop criticizing movies a long time ago. I don't have the qualification really. The movie as a thing is quite good. If it was a car, I would want to drive it, because it is quality. It is put together well, well directed, produced, whatnot. It's easy to see that it wasn't shot on location from the moment they step off the boat. A few computerised shots of fuji san in the background aren't gonna cut it, sorry.

I'll bet some Japanese wish japan had that much arable land just sitting around. Bu this is really aside the point.

And what is that point? That the movie, while well made, is a painful crock. I'm surprised and saddened to see the way it was written. Kiba touched on it in his last post. This movie, along with many others of it's ilk, is just another example of history being rewritten to glorify Americans well, white Americans and European influence and imperialism in general. I find it repulsive.

Did anyone see that one a couple years back, with Nicolas Cage, he was fighting the Japanese I believe, in the south pacific or something and he had to join up with some native Americans who had been enlisted because their language was being used as some sort of undecypherable code. The title escapes me now, but it had some of the same identical themes, and was for that reason equally repulsive.

What are those themes? Well... Here's the basic frame of the move or story I'm sure you've seen or heard many times.

->European is abducted, lost on exploration, lost in a storm or otherwise brought unwittingly or unwillingly to the place of "savages".

->European posesses some invaluable information or technology which provides them with some sort of elite status and in no time they are rubbing elbows with the most powerful of the "savage" population. They are always immediately (or soon enough) brought before the local chieftan, or emperor or what have you.

->European discovers along the way that the people his culture viewed as "savages" were really an honorable and cultured people all along and have been misunderstood by some confusion (usually caused in the first place by the same European imperialism that labeled them as savages as an excuse for exterminating them).

->European learns the deepest and most complex aspects of whatever culture in an amazingly short period of time (a year or two). He will then usually side with the natives and defend them, fight for them, save their leader, whatever.

->European is confronted by their own culture again, they either have to return or whatever, but when they do they find that they have already been so changed by their experience that they no longer belong in their old culture anymore, at this point they either die fighting, or remain in the culture, or return to their own culture but remain estranged from it.


If you've ever seen "Little Big Man" with Dustin Hoffman(?), If you've ever read James Clavell(?)'s "Shogun", or that movie with Nicolas Cage that I mentioned, you can see this pattern repeat over and over. "Shaka Zulu" is another one, for those of you who remember it. "Last of the Mohicans", anyone? Get it now, the last samurai...? Let's face it, Europeans have committed no small amount of atrocities in history, all over the world, and every once in a while they want to make themselves feel better about it. So they attempt to re-write history with paper thin, never-even-happened fantasies like this one.

Chie was right, it does portray Japanese society of the time very well, and also represents in a very favourable light some of the finer principles and beliefs of the Japanese and their culture. Movies like this always do, the culture in question is always flawless and pure, if a little misguided or corrupted by one or two wayward individuals. They seem to shout, "We'd all be friends if it weren't for those two evil traitors!"

Did I say re-write history back there? That's right, I did. ncje said something to the effect of--movies are meant to entertain and nothing more--I find that completely innacurate, and I find it sad that some people think that way.

Perhaps you over-estimate the level of information aquisition for most people, but a sadly large number of them take it solely from television and movies. I don't blame them, we sometimes just assume that if someone goes to the trouble of shooting something, it must be true. So called 'reality' television and entertainment only reinforces this.

For a great number of Americans, historical or even semi-historical movies like this one DO become their truth and their fact. How often do you find yourself citing some fact or thinking on some history that you saw in a movie or read in a book that was not text (even though textbooks have been known to carry innaccuracies* as well)? Although the movie does a great job of portraying Japanese CULTURE when it comes to Japanese HISTORY it is pathetically innacurate.

Remember in the film Alugulen keeps that fake little journal? Mysteryously missing accurate dates (because as we all know the "savage" Japanese don't have calendars). It almost gives his account an air of historical accuracy, doesn't it? Remember near the end of the movie, before Alugulen is martyred (without dying) in the last battle when he hands his journal and some other papers to the "linguist?" and says "maybe you can use this in your book" or something?

Doesn't it make you think... yeah, that's how we know about this, because he gave it to the linguist and he recorded it, and it becomes history, right? Remember how the linguist watched the whole battle from a vantage point on a hill or something? So we knew that if Alugulen fell, he would be there to accurately relate everything. There were always clues kept in the movie to help the willing audience fool themselves into believing it might be historical fact.

But they always get it wrong. Movies like this that try to erase guilt and purify history always get it wrong because they are made from the viewpoint of European imperialists, or their descendants. It's made to please Americans, and make them feel good about themselves. It's always hard on the negative things that America did in the past and not now.

You know what the stupidest part of this movie was? Remember in the last battle, when they're fighting on their feet, before they charge the howitzers*? Remember when Alugulen's ward gets shot or stabbed or whatever? What does Alugulen scream out?

"Bob!!" That's right. Even after becoming functional in Japanese and learning the names of everyone he interacted with, he still calls that noble old Samurai by the stupid nick-name he gave him. That's stupid. His name wasn't Bob, but because that's what Alugulen called him, that became his name.

And because American movie makers want to believe that this is the way history occured, now a significant portion of the population will be walking around with this crazy notion that Americans were responsible for re-unifying Japan and keeping it strong at some point...so sad.

Why Americans always have to be the heroes? Mark my words, a few years from now there will be a similar movie about events in the middle east. Oh wait, they already made that one "Three kings" with George Clooney* Mark(?) Whalberg(?) and a pretty good performance from Ice-Cube(?).

I happened upon this site by the way while looking for some Japanese language learning resources, I would really love to find a site/chatroom/person who I could engage in a language exchange with, if anyone has any information or suggestions.

Also I apologise for posting so late, I only just saw the movie.

[nafutari]

"Windtalkers", that was the movie with Nicolas Cage*.