★兔★

The Last Samurai - a review

I have just watched The Last Samurai in local cinema; and would like to give
some comments with regard of all respects.

[PERSONAL BACKGROUND] I love samurai film and Japanese culture at large; thus
I would love to watch literally any film in the genre. I’ve seen the trailer
and found that part of the cinematography is not bad; the film is about
samurai, and chamone, Koyuki, one my favourite actresses, is in the film. So
I there am, I will watch it.

[PLOT - I will pick up stuff I am personally interested in] the plot
manifests the fact that this is a film made up out of total nonsense; and it
is not merely intolerably nonsensical, but also outragenously preposterous.
It is a shame and if you do in any way respect the Japanese history/culture
this film does great violence to it. It is most abusive nature that I could
possibly imagine.

An American captain, and “warrior”, Captain Algren (Tom Cruise), was
recruited by the Meiji government to help to train the modern Japanese army
and take up on the resistance of the “samurais” (historically, this should
literally mean the “militant conservatives”).

The plotline goes like that of a typical Dances with the Wolves; a Western
man bought in to some heterogeneous culture presupposed as barbaric and
uncivilised, and found that there is some thing really valuable in it and he
comes to love it and even make a personal sacrifice and commitment in defence
of it. So there the clichés go.

Algren comes to love the samurai culture, its precise reason I have to say
not delivered very clear in the film. What to do with his massacre of
innocent Indians and the spirit of samurai? He’s definitely obsessed with his
violent past and crimes that he have committed, but again, does the samurai
culture in some way represent any philosophy closely knit with love and peace
that he could seek comfort from?

The climax scene is a mini-scale of civil war between the government army and
the “samurais”. The government soldiers are quite modern if you like, they
use rifles, machine guns (!) and cannons, and their uniform look like modern
soldiers (of the time). The samurais, weirdly, use Middle Age weapons that
you will typically find in an authentic samurai film set in, say, mid-15th
century. Precisely, only a couple of several leaders are really samurais; the
other foot solders or horsemen. There are basically three types of soldiers,
the horsemen, the infantries, and the bowmen, though the later two groups are
ambiguously mixed with no clear distinction. It is said that the samurais
“refused to use firearm”. But c’mon, Japanese warlords and their soldiers
have been used firearms since mid 15th century and we all know Oba Nobunaga
was an important pioneer especially in devising related combat tactics

So the two sides, oddly, had an encounter. The samurais side managed to
defend themselves for some moment and launched some sort of attacks. Finally
they are all liquidated, barring the American hero Captain Algren, who has
joined their side in the end. The scene is something like British soldiers
massacring Zulu warriors, Americans killing Indians and Chinese soldiers
slaughtered by far-range firearms by imperial forces in 19th century.

I couldn’t for a second question what the hell the soliders, fighting for
both sides, are thinking when they are killing each other; what is the
meaning for the war? Totally nonsense. And I couldn’t for a single second
stop to wonder what the hell is Captain Algren thinking about when he was
fighting? What is the meaning for the war? When he sees so many people have
died for a nonsensical cause does he in any way feel regret? Does the human
cost worth it? For me this is a war out of total nonsense. Absolutely devoid
of any meaning at all. It is a fantastic civil war probably invented by the
Westerners simply to make up a film.