Member Review The Last Samurai (2003)

[RedRover]

It's like it all came together at once. I wish it happen come again!

I've read the Connell book. It's just good, if not disjointed (avant garde history).

Son of the Morning Star is really good. But it was not immediately successful. Enter a decade of more Stephen King min-series for ABC, as "IT" which had aired in Nov. 1990 was really successful in comparison.

You know, Tom Cruise's "Last Samurai" is an Eastern, but there are some samurai westerns. For example "Red Sun" (1971) with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune.

Or Tom Laughlin's "Master Gunfighter" (1975) uses a samurai sword to outwit his gunslinging opponents...

 

[C.W. Roden]

I went to the library yesterday and picked up The Last Samurai. I haven't watched it just yet, but it's about a Civil War veteran, and was wondering how everybody else felt about it. It's directed by Edward Zwick (Glory), so it should be a masterpiece (still never seen Legends of the Fall).

View attachment 539072

I found it to be worth the watch and certainly a great film with two outstanding actors: Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe (oh and if you're a Harry Potter fan you'll recognize British actor Timothy Spall aka "Wormtail" also).

 

[GELongstreet]

Meanwhile it also introduced Hiroyuki Sanada to an international audience, despite having acted for decades already (and some Shakespeare theater work), and he is a welcome sight ever since.

 

[TallTallMan]

I found it to be worth the watch and certainly a great film with two outstanding actors: Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe (oh and if you're a Harry Potter fan you'll recognize British actor Timothy Spall aka "Wormtail" also).

I'm not a HP fan so I wouldn't notice, but to each his own Watanabe has never given a bad performance!

 

[TallTallMan]

I've watched forty minutes so far, and am enjoying myself. I guess he was one of Custer's Wolverines, since he was at Gettysburg and later the 7th Calvary.

I also stated earlier it was "short"; it's near three hours! Where'd I get that idea?!

 

[RedRover]

I've watched forty minutes so far, and am enjoying myself. I guess he was one of Custer's Wolverines, since he was at Gettysburg and later the 7th Calvary.

I also stated earlier it was "short"; it's near three hours! Where'd I get that idea?!

1980's "Shogun" is twelve hours long.

 

[wausaubob]

In some ways The Last Samurai expands on the themes of The Seven Samurai . Adhering to the old ways, as the age of gunpowder arrived was a futile waste of the lives of good men. The Last Samurai just moved the question to the era in which the Japanese ports were open and western culture was arriving. The famous quote of the fictional Rhett Butler when he reviews the town square of Atlanta filled with wounded Confederates is similar.

 

[GELongstreet]

1980's "Shogun" is twelve hours long.

12 excellent hours (though not always pleasant). Meanwhile it has been edited into an atrocious movie cut as well.

 

[TallTallMan]

Son of the Morning Star is really good. But it was not immediately successful. Enter a decade of more Stephen King min-series for ABC, as "IT" which had aired in Nov. 1990 was really successful in comparison.

You know, Tom Cruise's "Last Samurai" is an Eastern, but there are some samurai westerns. For example "Red Sun" (1971) with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune.

View attachment 539464

Or Tom Laughlin's "Master Gunfighter" (1975) uses a samurai sword to outwit his gunslinging opponents...

View attachment 539463

Is Hidalgo a Middle-Eastern?

 

[RedRover]

Is Hidalgo a Middle-Eastern?

View attachment 539690

Sure!

Just like "Quigley" is a Down Under!

 

[TallTallMan]

I watched TLS last night, and loved it! It's my favorite of the unofficially-named Cowboy in a Strange Land Series. His assimilation felt the most real (he had seen nothing but dishonor at home, and was drawn to honor in a strange country.) I like how he fell in love with the Japanese lady, rather than the incongruous available American white woman we usually see (i.. Stands With a Fist and Crazy Cora.)

The movie also made me sad, because I started to feel nostalgic for the 2000s, which I briefly lived through.

 

[uaskme]

Any of those X Union soldiers?

Last Samurai, X Union soldier commands the Japanese post war. Melts into Japanese Culture.

Dancing With Wolves. X Union soldier joins the Souix, accepted by Native culture.

I really liked Dancing With Wolves. But both on a cultural level, kind of corny.

 

[TallTallMan]

I really liked Dancing With Wolves. But both on a cultural level, kind of corny.

It's good, but I personally found his assimilation into a Sioux improbable on multiple levels.

 

[uaskme]

In some ways The Last Samurai expands on the themes of The Seven Samurai . Adhering to the old ways, as the age of gunpowder arrived was a futile waste of the lives of good men. The Last Samurai just moved the question to the era in which the Japanese ports were open and western culture was arriving. The famous quote of the fictional Rhett Butler when he reviews the town square of Atlanta filled with wounded Confederates is similar.

Perry shelled Tokyo in 1853. Opium Wars early 1840s with China. America was forcing trade and trying to open up Japan and China society before1870s.

 

[TallTallMan]

In some ways The Last Samurai expands on the themes of The Seven Samurai . Adhering to the old ways, as the age of gunpowder arrived was a futile waste of the lives of good men. The Last Samurai just moved the question to the era in which the Japanese ports were open and western culture was arriving. The famous quote of the fictional Rhett Butler when he reviews the town square of Atlanta filled with wounded Confederates is similar.

I am nuts about Kurosawa so the homages in TLS--like the rain fight--were fan service at its best!

 

[uaskme]

It's good, but I personally found his assimilation into a Sioux improbable on multiple levels.

Didn't see the same thing with Samurai?

Wannabe justified the movie as a way to open up Hollywood's interpretation of Asians. Hollywood was pretty harsh to Asians, Along with most other cultures initially.

 

[TallTallMan]

Didn't see the same thing with Samurai?

Wannabe justified the movie as a way to open up Hollywood's interpretation of Asians. Hollywood was pretty harsh to Asians, Along with most other cultures initially.

I felt like his alcoholism and PTSD made his attraction to Bushido believable. He'd witnessed Indian massacres etc. so much here that he used an ancient honor code as a cure.

 

[wausaubob]

I am nuts about Kurosawa so the homages in TLS--like the rain fight--were fan service at its best!

TLS is very similar to the Seven Samurai. Naturalist imagery, and linear story telling, and homage to the Samurai tradition while still commenting on its futility in the modern age.

 

[RedRover]

It's good, but I personally found his assimilation into a Sioux improbable on multiple levels.

There's "Run of the Arrow" (1957) where a Confederate veteran joins the Sioux!

 

[RedRover]

I felt like his alcoholism and PTSD made his attraction to Bushido believable. He'd witnessed Indian massacres etc. so much here that he used an ancient honor code as a cure.

Japanese immigrant to America Joseph Heco recounted he didn't believe that the Samurai were protesting recent reforms which cut off their feudal income...

...

Another publication explains the feudal overlordship in which the samurai were central was ended, with commutation payouts by the Government equivalent to six years of their hereditary income in 1876... how they got on afterward was their business, but the hereditary income was over...

...

Anyways, Mr. Heco notes the final battle against the last Samurai at the Battle of Shiroyama in 1877, but likens the defeat of the Samurai in Japan to the crushing out of a ferocious barbarism, which he likens somewhat to the slavery in the American South...