Go see The Last Samurai if you want good sword fighting
#1
Posted 05 December 2003 - 10:55 PM
The story over-romanticizes the samurai but still a great story. Riflemen win, and should have won. And while the Emperor pays homage to the samurai for preserving Japanese traditions, true historians know that if Japan were to become a greater power then rebellious samurai had to be put down. One thing they overlook is that 200 years earlier, Daimyo who won the battle of Sekigahara depended heavily on muskets. Still great movie. Bloody, realistic, entertaining.
#3
Posted 07 December 2003 - 08:39 PM
:yuck:
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#4
Posted 08 December 2003 - 02:55 AM
#5
Posted 08 December 2003 - 05:14 PM
In most respects, the movie is mindful of Japanese culture. Rather than having everyone flying around on wires and hanging off of the tops of trees, it depicts Samurai swordplay as an art and, simultaneously, an effective tool of combat. It spends a large amount of time showing the various Samurai, along with Algren, honing their skills with the sword.
Technical aspects of the kenjutsu and jujitsu are terrific, nothing over glorified or flashy, just down to earth technique. There are a few etiquette things that were overlooked (such as not breaking the seal on the sword when it is drawn), but they didn’t deter me.
A paranoid Tom Cruise suddenly wonders why he’s the only Samurai dressed in a flamboyant red outfit.
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#6
Posted 08 December 2003 - 06:07 PM
it's a terrible name for a film. i don't care how good it might be, i won't see it. he's the last anything, he's just the first american samuri, and 'american samuri' would also be a terrible name for a film.
they should call it 'tom cruze as a samuri - can you stomach it?'
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#9
Posted 13 December 2003 - 04:21 AM
2 thumbs up from Jordan
There was an entire legion of samurai in that scene that wore red. They did not glorify Tom. It was well balanced.
Over romantized? A tiny bit. But it help show the contrast between men who put their heart and soul into an art, and men who shoot guns for pay.
#11
Posted 14 December 2003 - 02:40 AM
I have no idea whether the movie does this character justice, but I figure just by throwing an American into the story, and by telling the story through his eyes, they've blown it. Hollywood has no faith that American audiences will ever be able to watch movies about foreigners unless they've got an American tourist on board to keep it normal.
#12
Posted 14 December 2003 - 11:33 AM
The Satsuma rebellion was a political reaction to two things: 1) the abolishment of samurai customs (i.e. top knot and wearing of the daisho, the long and short sword) and 2) the secret transport of Imperial weapons to Satsuma in case it became necessary to attack Saigo Takamori and his followers.
Saigo Takamori was considered a patriot who helped establish the Meiji government by defeating Tokugawa forces of the shogun ten years before the Satsuma rebellion. When he heard of anti-samurai laws, he “retired” from the government and returned to his province in Kyushu, the most southern island, almost the furthest from Tokyo, the new capital. His rebellion – the last of many – cannot be taken out of the context that it was an attempted coup d’états to remove the Emperor’s cabinet, not a popular rebellion of the people against a tyrannical or anti-traditional government. During the evolution towards a new government, the shogun, before being defeated, entertained notions of leading a bicameral government in which nobles were in the higher house and samurai in the lower house. No where was there room for the lower classes who were deemed unfit to govern. If the rebellion had succeeded, it’s possible there would have been no middle class in Japan, the powerhouse it the country’s stability and economic wealth.
I’ve no problem with a fictitious story of a Westerner becoming friends of the famed Dai Saigo (the Great Saigo). James Clavel’s book is based on a similar story of a Westerner penetrating Japanese culture and participating in its politics.
#13
Posted 14 December 2003 - 12:21 PM
I think that we sometimes forget that samurai were not saints -- they fought for power, wealth, and glory in the name of their lords. Many commoners feared the samurai, seeing them as people living under dictatorships see the police.
The westernization of Japan -- something that could not be prevented -- was immediately seen by the samurai as the end of their dominance. Like most struggles, there are two reasons: public reasons and private reasons. Thus, tradition and culture were given as reasons for fighting the modernization of Japan, but power played the biggest role in that rebellion.
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#14
Posted 14 December 2003 - 06:36 PM
yeah, it's a term like;
'the last action hero'
'the last boy scout'
'the last of the mohicans'
'the last unicorn'
it's over used and consequentially non-sensicle.
(i was just being difficult before)
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#15
Posted 15 December 2003 - 04:49 AM
'the last boy scout'
'the last of the mohicans'
'the last unicorn'
it's over used and consequentially nonsensical.
I agree it's overused. But from time to time its acceptable to use the adjective in a title, since it can be wonderfully evocative. Consider:
The Last Picture Show
Last Exit to Brooklyn
The Last Days Before the War
Last Year at Marienbad
Your own fine example:
Last of the Mohicans
And this one, The Last Samurai. A great title, but my opinion is the story better be about the last samurai, and not some civil war solidier pointlessly shoved in for flavour. It's true, as Nick points out, that Clavell gave us a Japanese saga through the eyes of an Englishman, but that Englishman never stepped onto a battefield, and in fact played only a minor role in the proceedings. The story was really told through his eyes more than it was a series of his experiences. I still haven't seen THE LAST SAMURAI (holding out for a while just because it's Tom Cruise, and frankly I'd have preferred Jason Biggs to that hack), and I want it to be good, but I am skepticalwhen I look at imdb and I don't see anyone playing Saigo Takomori.
Not making a movie like this actually be about the last samurai is as dumb as what they did with THIRTEEN DAYS, a film about the Cuban missile crisis whose main characer was one of Kennedy's advisors rather than Kennedy himself.