The Last Samurai: Historical Horseshit?

[Big Booger]

I bought the DVD to show in some of my classes. Well, I've watched it for the past 2 weeks, 9 classes per week, and I can say I like the film. It is good, but not as good as it could have been.

That said, I am wondering if there is any historic value to the movie? I mean is it a load of horseshit, an urban legend, or is it based off of some real history?

I know the Emperor, time period, Meiji Restoration, etc... are roughly correct, but I mean was there literally a "last samurai", and no I read the thread about the real last samurai..

Also, is there any story that remotely resembles a gaijin going to live with samurai and becoming one? I am just curious.

I think it was over the top that this gaijin could become samurai in less than 6 months.. :P

But I liked it. The DVD comes in a 2 DVD volume, one with the movie and the other with about 2 hours or so of commentary.

I do like the visuals, but the scene where the samurai were bringing back algren, into tokyo looked cheap and shiddy..

I'm wondering if some of the greenery and mountain scenes were shot in Japan?? Or maybe they just CG'd the concrete???

[kamome]

Also, is there any story that remotely resembles a gaijin going to live with samurai and becoming one? I am just curious.

Sure. Have you read "Shogun" by James Clavelle (my favorite book, by the way)? It's based on a true story about an Englishman who shipwrecked on the coast of Japan at the turn of the 17th century and actually was accepted, to an extent, as a samurai advisor for Tokugawa. I am not sure to what extent Clavelle took artistic license with the facts, but I do recall that the story was based in part on true historical events.

[cstaylor]

The movie was mostly shot in New Zealand IIRC.

[jingai]

Shogun and Last Samurai are historical fiction, not history.

I couldn't find my professor's comments on it in the newspaper a few months back, but did find my own comments:

I actually got a chance to see "Last Samurai" last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's definitely the sort of traditional "feudal and militaristic" story I'm sure SCAP would have banned, but what makes it odd is that it's by Americans and has an American in the lead. I never thought I would be in a theater with a group of Americans who cheered for renegade samurai against the Meiji government and their American/European advisors. The samurai in the movie are impossibly pure of heart, reprenting a noble past that never existed, but that's what makes it such a traditionally Japanese film. Watching it I was reminded of the 1960s-era yakuza films where the yakuza were the noble bearers of Japanese values who fought in vain against corrupt modern Japan. It's funny that "Last Samurai" took this trope, mixed it in with the American romantization of the underdog, and ended up with a Hollywood film that glorifies feudal Japan. On top of that, it was a really moving film and succeeds masterfully as entertainment.

[Big Booger]

Great info there. Thanks UG.

[Big Booger]

Shogun and Last Samurai are historical fiction, not history.

I think I know that.. but certainly some events could have been similar if not derived from history... that was the point of my post.

[jingai]

I think I know that.. but certainly some events could have been similar if not derived from history... that was the point of my post.

And my point is that the basic characterizations of both the Japanese and the foreigner are completely ficticious, even if some of the events were based on reality. The samurai were nothing like they appeared in the movie- they hadn't fought a battle in 250 years and had become bureaucrats.

Zwick based his portrait of the Last Samurai on The Nobility of Failure which is a great, if romanticized, read. It's a great look into why these Saigo Takamori-like characters resonate so strongly in Japan. This is the true history behind "The Last Samurai"- cultural history.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374521204/103-0588981-0215062?v=glance

[Mike Oxlong]

[gaijinpunch]

I know I'm some 7 years late to the party, but I thought this movie sucked ass through and through. Hollywood start to finish.

[jingai]

That was fascinating, thanks. I wouldn't have guessed a Frenchman to end up on the side of the shogunate against the more worldly reform forces. Coligny, you have a lot to live up to.

[damn name]

Brunet tucked tail and deserted before the final battles, hiding aboard ship back to Europe as a stowaway. Instead of being punished or ostracized, he was, in traditional French fashion, honored for his cowardice and subsequently promoted.

[Coligny]

Napoleon III seemed to have an undiagnosed case of yellow fever...

Vietnam, Japan... we wuz all over the place...

Personnally... after first hand experience with the locals in Hokkaido... they can keep that shithole...

Now...

Saigon... I'm already missing the place and I haven't finished my stock of French mayonnaise yet...