42ndnumber You do realize that the main character isn’t supposed to be French right? He’s an AMERICAN advisor to the Meji government. His character is just *inspired by a French man....
@@sjappiyah4071 Yeah but the thing is that americans always want to have the glory in every historical event. It doesn't bother me in reality since the movie is good but I'm just a french man so i'm complaining
@@const6610 ok we get it you hate american films that put glory in them except their enemies like afghanistan movies where people who speak arabic are the bad guys yet this is one of the few movies where they retain the language of another culture because that is their backdrop to the story its about Japan my guy not French and Japan heck they could've made a film just Japanese if they wanted to but that would force the actors to just talk in english since its American made edit: rather not force but WILL make the actors just speak english for the actual audience to understand
True. Though my favourite actor he is so big that Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise. He cant hide. But in this he does a fucking amazing Job. Collateral, Magnolia is also some. I also believe Eyes Wide Shut is at same level.
As far as the "not using guns" thing goes, I like to focus on the line "NO LONGER dishonors himself by using firearms". "No longer" being the key words, which implies that he is well versed in their use, as history would also suggest. I like to think that he chooses to no longer use them because he knows his rebellion is not a winnable war, but a message to the emperor to not forget the old ways. He has condensed his tactics down to only the most "honorable" and symbolic ones, Only using the things that the imperial army has "forgotten" or compromised on. He fights not as the samurai actually fight, but as the legends and stories SAY they fight. Blade and bow, discipline and tradition. Anything less is just another losing battle by an inferior force
Annoying thing is they missed an opportunity to show the real reason they stopped using guns. They had run out of ammunition even for muskets let alone modern firearms. That would have shown just how desperate everything truly was.
Yeah, Samurai definitely did fight like this in the era, but they did it just to make a point, knowing they would lose. Like, once time, a military rebellion ended with a regiment of samurai attack a fortified position...with swords and lances against cannons and guns. Yeah, it went about as well as one might expect.
It’s more complex than that. There was a selfish reason for distancing themselves from guns. Mainly being that a peasant could kill a samurai fairly easy.
Still a little bit ridiculous because Saigo Takamori was literally one of the three great nobles who “lead” the Meiji restoration. His brother was an admiral in the modernized Japanese navy. If anything he would’ve been the one pushing for guns and modern technology to be part of the new society. The only thing he didn’t want to change was the power structure of the samurai. Not the tech.
It's clear that movie attempted to compromise historical accuracy with more cinematic approach combined with sending a specific message to the viewers. I would say they did a great job, because it's hard to explain everything over the course of the movie without changing it into straight up documentary. We got a notable samurai dressed in western uniform fighting for emperor, we have a quote about Katsumoto *no longer* using firearms (it means he used them, the art of making them was preserved throughout the shogunate, though obviously they were archaic by the time Meji Restoration happened). Hell, Oda Nobunaga did introduce firearm regiments on scale not used even in Europe at the time (XVI century), but then, he was fascinated by everything western, especially if it furthered his goals. Real life samurais who rebelled were mostly angry about losing their privileged status, which as mentioned in video could be both a blessing and a curse.
My Grandmother was Japanese and when she saw the movie, she talked about the real samurai, Saigo Takamori. He's still revered in Japan as a hero of the Old Ways.
My Great Grandmother did the same. Also part Japanese, even if no one (even my grand parents) look it, like seriously, we just look white. But my family (English) look up to Takamori too. He is a hero.
He was pardoned shortly after his death by the emperor, with it being said that his rebellion was noble. He did what honor obliged him to do and rebel. He was therefore a hero, fighting a losing battle as he had to. One could argue this was part of the greater plan of increasing nationalism in Japan and militarism. The samurai had to be removed to reinforce the emperor's power, but in honoring their stand the government reinforced the idea of honorable dearh for your country. An ideal built so strong that we would eventually see them fight as they did in the second world war
He is. Perhaps the epytome of the "Tragic Hero" concept, or the idea that a man doesnt need to succede to become a Hero, but to stand for its ideals and take them all the way. Theres a statue of Takamori and his dog in Ueno Park!
One thing I really like about this movie is that Algren actually participated in the raid on the Native Americans even though he opposed it. Unlike the cliché that the hero just stays back and therefore is innocent, it gives a sense of realism
And not only that. He was scarred by it, and didn't like celebrating it. I'm Native, and descended from survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre. It's something that's stayed with my family, since it's happened And to see Algren, a US Calvary member (albeit, a fictional one) suffer from what happened, and carry that guilt and grief with him. Really humanized for me, the Military that had eliminated many of my ancestors relatives They were human beings as well. Many fresh from the Civil War, when the Indian Wars began. It's traumatizing for both sides, and that's what makes this movie special to me
That's one of my favorite aspects of the film. Instead of the great hero that comes to save the samurai or some shit it's a story of a flawed person finally gaining redemption even though the samurai die. He's able to show a country what they tried to destroy for the sake of modernism is still important for its history. You shouldn't destroy your traditions and history. You should embrace it. He redeems himself for doing what he failed to do and couldn't for the natives in the U.S
@@bradleykalinoski99427not only does he not save the Samurai but in fact it's their culture and dedication to discipline and honor that eventually redeems Algren. It may not be the most historically accurate movie but it sure has a great story with well written characters.
Yeah, problem is that, unlike in their era, our lives have gotten so much more hectic, we have such limited time, time has gotten really valuable, everything has to be done fast nowadays. What I am saying is that its difficult to devote yourself to everything with our limited time, the only thing you can devote yourself to is your job or a personal goal if you can make the time for it.
@@MercenaryZack I am of the firm belief that everyone needs at least one thing in their life where they can pursue perfection. We need that to balance and center our lives. It doesn't have to be something grand, but even something simple as making what you consider the perfect cup of coffee in the morning, or organizing your closet perfectly, hell even parking in your spot perfectly centered, something. Everyone needs at least one thing in their life they can have pride in. Pursuing perfection does not imply you'll ever achieve it, that's the main realization: it's the effort you put into that goal that grows you as a person. There is no destination of perfection, there is only a journey.
It just doesnt fit the mold unless youre a special chaste or just survive off the land. People have jobs (rarely related to some kind of passion) and thats that, you dont work you die.
So the point is not whether it was historically accurate, yes they knew each other. Also not whether it was in a different movie. If this was a thread on the Bruce Lee biopic I would have commented similarly. The point s that he did not want to hear about a bad moment in a good mans life but wanted to hear about the good life of a good man.
@B Redfern If Katsumoto was a good man, he wouldn't have been fighting for the rights of the Samurai, which included the right to kill commoners for bumping into him by accident. Let's not kid ourselves: Algren was a deluded man who fought for the wrong side.
@@Ares99999 While in todays society your comments would be valid you are judging a far different time and place. The people he was fighting against were far more brutal. The Samurai fought for and defended the country. There were historical reasons for the feudal nature of the time and to judge his actions by todays standard are wrong. That does not mean we should return to those time, the freedoms we enjoy today were non existent back then and people took advantage of this, hence the Samurai and what they did to defend the entire country. There is an over-riding desire by people to judge past leaders through the lens of todays peaceful world. In reality our world has been in the longest standing peaceful time in history and has distorted our perceptions to the realities of the past.
@B Redfern The samurai did not 'fight for and defend their country'. They fought, at best, for one of the many hundreds of warlords that feuded over Japan for centuries. Then Tokugawa won and managed to impose a certain level of peace. In which time the Samurai became less and less useful. Many Samurai then quit being Samurai because there were other ways to make a living, and fighting was no longer omnipresent. And even in the timeframe of the movie, the Samurai were judged to be obsolete, and had been for some time beforehand. Their privileges being revoked - like killing people who bothered you - was a progressive thing. And unlike dumbasses like Katsumoto and the imbeciles that followed him, most Samurai were reasonable enough to understand that there was no going back. Instead they adapted, most of them becoming officials or officers in the army or navy. Algren fought for the inflexible side. The one unwilling and unable to change. Tragic it may be, but right it never will. There is an over-riding desire by people to distort perceptions of samurai and pirates and knights - who were all pretty darn brutal people - into something romantic. The reality of the past was that samurai were armed thugs. Period.
Fun fact: 1) flintlock musket was one of the traditional weapons of the samurai since 16th century. 2) Just as there are traditional iaijutsu, kenjutsu and sojutsu (spear) schools there are also traditional teppojutsu (gunpowder weapon) schools. 3) Takamori's rebel army used rifles and artillery just like the Imperial Army. 4) Takamori was wearing a western style commander uniform in his last stand.
No, no it wasn't, the Japanese used a rifle known as the tanegashima, they were the Japanese reproductions of Portuguese matchlocks from the mid-16th century. These were inferior to flintlocks. Other than that, I agree with the rest.
Interesting. Wasn't it the Chinese who invented gun powder anyway? Weren't they pretty consistently fighting each other? There must've been some exchange proir to European influence.
The end of the battle on the field always brings me to tears. As Nick said, it is the perfect metaphor for times changing. Like English Knights getting shot down by the British Colonial Army's rows of soldiers. It is the perfect metaphor for times changing. As one way of life dies, another one rises above the ashes.
„What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” Matthew 16:26 NIV
And like knights being shot down by line infantry ... it never happened lol. Their armor is also inacurate for the day. They wore metal plate armor, not lacquer.
Reasons for fighting for a cause.... The Last Samurai-The main character is mesmerized by the Samurai and their cause The Avatar- Jake Sully wants to get laid
The five minutes the extended version of Avatar adds to the opening of the film add a ton to establish Jake's character, which pretty dramatically elevates the film as a whole.
@@Sea-qv4sd The point was the Emperor had become a puppet of the political class by then. Sure, he was a living god, but he was kept so isolated from the actual world of his subjects that he really didn't have a clear idea of what was happening save what his advisors wanted him to know. Algren telling him how Katsumoto lived was symbolic, mostly, of reminding the Japanese people what they were losing in the mad dash to "westernize".
One thing you also could have mentioned is that Tom Cruise is not "The Last Samurai" as a lot of people seem to think, and make fun of the movie for. The last samurai in the movie are Katsumoto and his followers, not Tom Cruise.
A lot of people seem to think samurai is singular when it is both singular and plural. I didn't know for a long time either and at one point I realized that samurai are a class and since you need to be born into it tom crukse can't be a real samurai. after that it was obvious that the last samurai is meant as plural and meant the samurai that died in the last battle.
Devoti yeah doesn't have anything to do with the conversation at hand. And it may have inaccuracies but films have the freedom to take certain liberties. As said otherwise both sides would have used guns for example. But it is still a pretty accurate depiction of the radical change that happened in Japan at this time. And you can't expect every film about historical events to be 100% accurate. Most medieval films for example are way more innacurate than this movie. And furthermore it never claimed to be accurate.
@@acrispywaffleiron4014 Algren’s role as Katsumoto’s kaishakunin is left beautifully ambiguous. Did Algren finish the job by beheading Katsumoto (as per tradition) offscreen, or did he decide against it, not wanting to mirror Bagley’s actions in the previous wars (i.e. scalping)?
It's called fast Imperial. All that time the Japanese spent not fighting amongst themselves let them hoard enough food and gold to power through Castle and jump straight into Imperial so they could rush out Elite Samurai, Cannon Galleons, and Hand Canoneers. They really had no choice when every other player was in Imperial at that point.
"Tell me, how did he die?" *Starts to weep* *Looks up to the emperror* "I will tell you... how he lived." This moment gives me chills, tears and a smile every single time
Despite being born into a family of samurai, Yataro Iwasaki founded the Mitsubishi corporation. He made important investments in shipping preceding and following the Meiji Restoration, and he became a successful and wealthy businessman and financier! I think about that every time I see a Mitsubishi on the road.
Yes, and somehow it remembers me first world war too, some generals were still trying to use old war tactics and the result was many men dying like the samurais in this movie
KATSUMOTO: “The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.” KATSUMOTO: “Perfect. They are all perfect.”
Enough with the "noble savage" narratives already! Everyone who's more or less educated knows how really savage and cruel all those peoples were up until a few decades ago. Just look up Japanese atrocities during WWII in Asia... Do you think they were any better during their "ancient history"?
Tokugawa Japan wasn't closed to all foreigners. The Dutch had a trade station called Deshima in the Bay of Nagasaki, and this is still reflected in Japanese medical jargon (the Japanese imported European medical knowledge via the Dutch Island), which has Dutch words in it. The Europeans stationed there by the Dutch East India Company were not allowed to enter the Japanese mainland, but they were allowed to import and export goods on a limited scale. As for this movie, it's a mess historically. However, I am quite fond of it on a metaphorical level. If you view Katsumoto and his Samurai as the metaphorical embodiments of the Old Japan, struggling against the rise of the New Japan, it really works.
+Aelius Magnus i was refering to time just after Tokugawa won and bacame shogun, not when they realized they need to modernize in 19th century. In around 1600 there was propobly more matchlocks than in europe.
You know it'd be really nice if this side of history was taught in the US but usually they gloss over that along with the genocide of the native americans. And pretty much every bad thing we've ever done.
Definitely my favorite Tom Cruise role. I've rarely seen such effective subtly in an actor's performance as with his performance as Algren. So much of the film required him to use nothing but his eyes to convey intense emotions, and goddamn did he nail it. The last two sequences of the film with Meiji and then Taka contain some of the most effective acting from a leading man I have ever seen. This film is a true gem.
Very compelling and yes, underrated to say the least.. i don't mind the historical inaccuracies because it's not based on true characters really, nor does it claim to be..but it is more the telling of a specific time period and struggle , that uses fictional characters to tell us about this specific point of modernization of Japan.. so, I'm not to harsh on it for any historical inaccuracies.. as l would be a film meant to be based on specific people in that time period.. that being said I'm a huge history buff and really enjoy learning more about a time period especially in Japanese history that is really overlooked and you don't really hear much,if anything about.. and this movie does a pretty good job using fictional characters and some pretenses to tell us about this period. All though granted it is glaring with some historical inaccuracies, false motives, and pretenses.. it's a damn good movie and i recommend it to anyone who enjoys history.
Some parts are true. By mid 1800s, samurai and bushido was on the decline. They were forbidden to carry swords in public. There was a mini war of Portugal waging a war on Japan before the 1800. Reason is because Portugal ships opium to Japan and the Japanese people didn’t like it and killed all foreigners and the addicts plus Western religion. Portugal win though because of modernize guns and cannons vs ancient swords, spears, and bow and arrow. It’s just a brief history that no one mention though.
@@jonross2747 What I find amusing was that the movie made praise of General George Armstrong Custer, even though, some would argue he was a reckless idiot that foolishly got himself and all his men killed in battle against the Native Americans, being bested by the chief Sitting Bull and faced an enemy ten times the size of his own troops.
A small objection; not all foreigners were banned from Japan. Chinese traders were often in Japan, scholars, and what not more. But, even more important perhaps, the Dutch were allowed to trade with the Japanese and were given their own tiny little island in Nagasaki (Deshima) to operate on. On an annual basis they were even summoned to audience with the Shogun. Japan even had Western Studies back then (Rangaku; technically Dtuch studies)
Also, a western man turned samurai isn't that far-fetched , as William Adams from England was ordained the title of samurai in the 1600s after his expedition boat crashed off the coast of Japan and he was held there to provide intelligence and cultural insight into the West. He ended up serving as a key advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the Japanese rulers that paved the way for barring most foreigners from entering Japan in the first place.
Also, most of the military advisors weren't american but prussian, see Jacob Meckel. Meckel left behind a loyal group of Japanese admirers, who, after his death, had a bronze statue of him erected in front of his former army college in Tokyo. Overall, the Imperial Japanese Army intensively oriented its organization along Prusso-German lines when building a modern fighting force during the 1880s. There is a reason why a lot of middle school uniforms look like prussian military uniforms over there
I don't know from everything that I read about the Meiji restoration, they modeled the Imperial Navy after the British and then Americans and, the Imperial Army after the Germans
It's hard to reconcile this sentence with the later "white savior" comments. That is exactly what happened?! Furthermore, it was 100% the culture of Japan that allowed this success. And for further reflection think of all the nations the US has tried to do the same and failed, that have markedly different cultures.
@@InvestmentBankr I think its due to the already existing unified infrastructure that allowed Japan to adapt so quickly unlike all the others who failed to do so, who were fragmented, my country for example.
This is one of the movies that I will watch whenever it comes on. Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe are just so enjoyable to watch on screen. Plus the theme of striking a balance between new and old always amazes me.
Something that always kinda annoyed we was when people would poke fun at "Tom Cruise being the last samurai", when the title refers to the samurai collectively. (Because there's no plural of the word "samurai.") It's a story about the last samurai as a warrior class, not the last dude who was a samurai.
That was my point: "Samurai" is an invariant noun, so it has no actual plural form. You can have one samurai and you can have seven samurai, but you can't have seven samurais. Also, while moose is an invariant, coyote isn't as it has the plural form coyotes.
Even if its singular... The last Samurai was Ken Watanabe's character, wasnt he? I was just a little bit taken out of the movie because Tom Cruise becomes one of the best swordfighters in six months.
Something that I like about this movie, is that cases like this where an outsider accepts and embraces another culture, actually happend during colonization. A real life example of that is the story of Gonzallo Guerrero. He was a Spaniard that went to the new world with Hernand Cortes to colonise the land, but the boat where he and his crew where sunk due to an enormous storm. He escaped the ship with other of his comrads and naufrage on a beach of the yucatan Peninsula. As soon as they touch land, they were captured by the locan Mayan people and some of them, along with Gonzalo, were sell to slavery and the rest were sacrificed. Gonzallo spend an unknown amount of years as a slave, Gonzalo stared to see the lives of the Maya and stared to learn their language and teach them military techniques to fight against the Spaniards that where slowly colonizing the peninsula. He slowly fell in love with the culture and saved a mayan chief's live from an alligator during a walk. He became a military leader with Mayan battle scars printed on his skin, he wearer the mayan clothes and their earnings. He felt in love with the Mayan chief's daughter and had three children with her. Before dying in battle at the side of the Mayan he wrote to Cortes after he send messengers to save him, he gave them a letter that wrote "For the live that this land of green brought me, I will tell them my brothers (the Spaniards) that I will stay here in the land of my people"
@@blackpowderkun Yeah if you take all the incidents between foreigners and Japan, and condensed them into one movie, you basically get The Last Samurai, give or take one or two liberties.
Samurai: trained for their whole lives in the sword, the spear and the bow Soldier: a conscript from a town 3 months ago that demolishes with superior technology
It should be mentioned, that there were still some regulated trades being made with the Dutch during the Sakoku period. Many Japanese learned Dutch from them and some science, as well as news from distant lands, which also explains why they caught up so fast with the rest of the world techwise and were capable of learning English later on. By the way, one of the first interpreters ever sent to America wasn't even surprised with the technology and gadgets he saw.
If you are talking about the first Japanese exhibition to America he was extremely surprised by a lot of things. He was extremely surprised by how technologically advanced they were (not because he saw things he didn't know but instead because he saw how abundant they were) and was most surprised by how wealthy they were. If I remember correctly he was most surprised by the abundance of high quality metal as in America metal scraps and cans litter the ground and beaches while in Japan when a building burns down people flock to grab what ever metal and nails they can as every piece is extremely valuable.
The really dumb thing about the movie is that they somehow have this stupid no gun rule for Samurai. The dumb thing about it is that in real life, Japan absolutely loved firearms when they first got them from the Portuguese. They loved them so much that they built their own gun foundries and factories and by the end of the 16th and early 17th century, there were more firearms in Japan than the rest of the world combined (I'll bet you never thought you'd hear THAT sentence uttered in seriousness). They even developed the most advanced muskets in the world at the time. They had muskets that could be reliably reloaded and fired in the rain, something that didn't exist in the West until the early 19th century with the percussion mechanism. The idea that a Samurai would consider guns to be dishonorable is stupid. A real samurai would have used everything and anything they had to their advantage in battle, and totally did.
+Hotshotter3000 Not to mention the Samurai, like any other warrior, was a practical and pragmatic human being. Anything that would give them an edge (including fighting dirty) would be used to its fullest. Heck, even the famed Ronin Miyamoto Musashi would've preferred a firearm if he could get his hands on one.
Nemo003 Musashi was the dirtiest fighting swordsman in history, and a magnificent bastard. He was still a highly skilled sword fighter in his own right.
+Nemo003 case in point,here was a translation from a samurai military manual from the 1600s that basically said if your fighting a strong opponent get your friends or comrades to rush them and hold them down so you can stab them,kill them and take their head
scantrontheimmortal That's even the case when you realize that on an operational level, the Samurai, many having been educated in the Chinese classics (e.g. Sun Tzu), would use anything and everything to their advantage. Nobunaga made use of superior numbers and the technological edge of firearms in many battles post-Okehazama (Anegawa, campaigns against the Hoganji, even Nagashino), Shingen used cavalry, superior numbers (e.g. 4th battle of Kawanakajima---> Takeda (20000) vs Uesugi (13000), Mikatagahara-------> Takeda (30000) vs Oda-Tokugawa (11000)), AND alliances, particularly against Nobunaga. Or how the Shimazu, despite constantly being the underdog in many of their victories, always relied on the ferocity of their warriors and officers, were the first to actually adopt firearms into their battles, and relied on luring and ambushing the enemy (e.g. Kizaki, Mimigawa, Okitanawate, Hetsugigawa).
Aside from its historical inaccuracies, this movie is still one of my favorites. The goal of a good movie is to entertain, and the Last Samurai does it really well. It is also one of the few movies that made me, an adult, cry like a baby. If you want historical accuracy and actually learn something about the Samurai, a documentary will do that job.
Historical accuracy when it came to iaido and kenjutsu in the movie almost didn’t happen. They hired actual trained kendoka and iaido practitioners for this movie. All of them high ranking sensei. They all threatened to walk off the set when they were asked to do things that were fake flashy Hollywood crap. This is why you won’t see anyone but Tom Cruise twirling a sword or other ridiculous fake stuff, and you won’t see anything but traditional swordsmanship as how it was practiced back then.
I cried twice in this movie: once when watching an ancient tradition get wiped from existence by the single turn of a lever, and another when watching a man we’d seen washed with torture in his dreams finally reach that peace he’d never thought he’d get back
The samurai weren’t wiped out until the nukes fell in 1945. Look into the imperial Japanese army command, nearly all samurai pedigree. Lots sided with the Meiji program because they saw the vision of using modernization to turn their sword outward and bring violence to foreign shores rather than rival feudal daimyo and enjoying archaic feudal rights
This is such a great movie. I disagree with the "white savior" trope, however. In this movie they saved him. He wasn't trying to save anyone. He knew the battle was already lost, but he wanted to die fighting for something that he actually believed in.
That's what i got as well. He was a broken man when the samurai captured him. They spared his life, sobered him up, educated him just as much as he educated them and then released him in a mich better state. He knew there was no way the samurai would win their last stand and he showed that he was willing to follow them in to battle. He did not lead them and the only "white saviour" moment i seen was when katsumoto was almost assassinated. It's implied at the end that he returns to their village for the woman (i forget her name) to carry on his new life in japan.
LadyGaGa is hot The only thing is, the samurai in the film weren’t portrayed as looking up to Algren. They respect him as an equal, not quite looking up to him, only when he finally embraces their culture and ways, which takes many months throughout the plot.
Most white savior concepts are false, most of the time the minorities/natives are looking up to the white mans technically advanced technologies, not the fact that he is white. In the blind side the white lady adopts a black kid, but she had lots to spare and was nice. If she was asian would it be the asian savior complex. Unless its old propaganda blatantly stating racial superiority its anti-white saltiness .
The patriot is not just historically inaccurate, it's an outright attack on it. Nothing but revisionist propaganda, but I still absolutely love the movie for its popcorn cinema qualities
The only thing I didn't like in the movie was that the ministers are portrayed as evil and envious people. They were doing what was best for Japan and they were right for the most part of it. Even the prime minister is portrayed as a rich commoner but in reality he was also a samurai and was bound to defend both the emperor and Japan.
@@nunodasilva5449 Not evil, but they certainly could be greedy. Omura always struck me as someone that would have been lower class under the feudal society. But because he was educated and a superb statesman, he is able to raise his station in a modernized Japan.
The portrail of society, clothes, the places and such where very acurate in the last samurai. The story is fiction sure, but the place and culture of the time is spot on.
The reason why Japan expelled all foreigners is because the Christian missionaries were instigating religious revolts. Tokugawa Ieyasu, remembering the whole sohei rebellion incident in mount hiei, wanted to avoid it all costs.
I'm so glad you noticed the difference between Last Samurai and Dances with Wolves regarding the White Savior trope. Algren doesn't come in and save the Samurai, he is humbled and learns from them. There's a reason Japanese audiences loved this film! haha
@@hkleider Not exactly. it's kind of zigzagged actually. The Japanese are slightly cast in that light at a glance but the Samurai are depicted as Civilized and sophisticated. In fact it's actually inverted with the Japanese (somewhat accurately) considering the Americans savage brutes
@@simonnachreiner8380 I actually find that lampshade(?) The best part. The Japanese definitely do seem themselves (in this film) as equals to the Americans (which is true). So they, like the Americans. Saw Native Americans (which I am a part of) as mysterious, savage people's It's real. And in a way, naive. As at the time, there was big "these people are godless savages" and misinformation on how the various Tribes operated. The Emperor, asking about the eagle feathers and face paint. Strikes me, as him being curious. Though he'd never likely be able to meet an actual native person (in the films lore) On the flip side. For me, as a Native viewer of the film. It definitely shows how much power America had over the depictions of Indigenous People. And how they promoted the idea, that we weren't civilized, or had proper religions or cultural customs
Personally, I still think this is too melodramatic for me to take seriously. It's like Edward Zwick took "Glory" and filled it with twice as much hot air.
4:25 Actually there had been several incidents of Western ships coming to Japan before, not to mention that the Dutch had a trading station in Nagasaki which they had kept since the early Edo period
Not only had westerners arrived to Japan way before Perry and his ships (1853), the japanese version of firearms were a model derived from the portuguese ones, introduced in 1543.
Well, yes, however, the Japanese haven’t really seen any military ships before hand, or at least not in a group and ready to fight. Keep in mind, the Japanese government made it very clear that the only ships the Dutch were allowed to send were merchant ships and they made it even more clear that they would not tolerate any other country’s ships, not even merchant or civilian. Also, keep in mind that while Japan had seen western ships, the Western countries weren’t showing their best, Japan had no idea what a western navy actually meant, even before they closed the country. The gun boats the US sent were a new experience, not only where they new ships that the Japanese didn’t know how to deal with, it wasn’t even a big deal to the US. The US could of easily of sent more gun boats to Japan and Japan couldn’t even deal with the ones that were there.
@@Redbird-dh7mu there was the Phaeton Incident of 1808 when a british frigate had fired upon the Dutch trading station in Nagasaki and threatened to destroy the japanese ships there, an american expedition to Edo Bay with two warships in 1846, a Royal Navy ship also coming to Edo Bay in 1849, and several french naval expeditions
Mehga sorta, the Dutch were allowed to send ships to their trading station. However, that trading station wasn’t on the mainland and they could only dock that trading station. Any other ship was not allowed
Of course, the most unbelievable moment in the film is when Algren is left a box containing some Japanese clothing. In the next scene, he appears perfectly dressed, which he apparently managed with no help. I can tell you from experience that *no one* can properly tie a Japanese hakama on the first attempt with no assistance or instruction!
+wig smey "Strangers have come to our shores. They bring weapons of smoke and fire. Weapons that kill without honor, without skill. But these foreigners and their guns can bring a man victory, and victory wipes away dishonor."
+Ian Cabugsa Love shogun 2 , but that saying is incomplete to me. It should go : "Strangers have come to our shores. They bring weapons of smoke and fire. Weapons that kill without honor, without skill. But these foreigners and their guns can bring a man victory, and victory wipes away dishonor. Only for that dishonor to be doubled when judged by history and looked back by the generations to come."
Breaking the Samurai forces in Shogun II Meiji Revolution was very easy. Just go in with Infantry and cannons. Setup a strong defense around your cannons and start shooting. They will come rushing in since they don't have many ranged units. At this time, your infantry and Gatling guns simply mow them down.
+Kevin Smith It all depends which domains you fight..for example I played Satsuma and by the time i got to Aizu and Hokkaido they were pretty advanced. AI upgrades themselves too.
If you watch many of the Samurai movies, they use rifles. The Dutch actually introduced the wheel lock musket/rifle to them. The Japanese were so impressed with it that they told their blacksmiths to start making them for the Samurai.
@@amp8295 matchlocks and cannons arrived in Japan in 1500s through the Portuguese and Dutch merchants and matchlocks were commonly used in their wars afterward. Japan even produced their own matchlocks called Tanegashima. I do not know much about the Boshin war that is the background of this movie, but I am sure the Japanese were using rifles and cannons and probably gatling guns besides their traditional weapons
The Japanese first had guns in the 1200's from China. But they were simple as hell, basically a hand held tiny cannon. The Portuguese were stranded on a junk ship in Tanegashima, the Japanese lord of this Island got two of the matchlock firearms off these men (supposedly bought them). He then had the Japanese make them in the thousands, this rendered a European invasion impossible. If the Japanese didn't do this so quickly then the Japanese without a doubt would have been invaded just like everyone else in Asia was.
I like how you included a lot of scenes from Kagemusha, the original (and historically accurate) case of horseback samurai charging and being mowed down by guns.
What people think of as "ninja clothing" is kind of like the horned helmets that Vikings only wore in operas. Japanese stage plays, the crew changing scenery wore black to symbolize to the audience they were meant to be ignored. So when you wanted ninjas in your play... having someone dressed in black suddenly attack was surprising, as to a trained audience they seemed to come out of nowhere. In reality, ninjas not wanting to be noticed... probably just wore what everyone around them was wearing. A special identifiable uniform or clothing style runs counter to their goal to not be noticed lol.
I personally love that scene. It’s just out of nowhere, bears no relevance to the plot, and is never discussed again. It’s hilarious. Does take you out of the movie for a bit but you quickly forget it in regards to the story. First time I saw it I was cracking up
@Lukas Antonius very true. And the occasions that did require them to be all sneaky sneaky, they didnt wear all black. It is most likely they wore a brown or blue color. There were no skyscrapers then to cast these massive shadows. Black would have stuck out more than help conceal. Brown would help them blend in to their surroundings.
Wasn't the look given to ninjas actually assassins? I read somewhere that it really was of middle eastern origin not so much Japanese? (The appearance, not existence)
Very well done. Thank you for pointing out the Samurai's use of guns centuries earlier. It really bugged me about the film. Honour had nothing to do with it. Oda Nobunaga himself embraced it when the "foreigners" (gaijin) arrived. At one point, Japan had more guns than all the nations of Europe combined! That's how common the gun was. But nonetheless the sword was always the honourable weapon that is considered to be the "soul" of the Samurai. Thanks again.
Actually, the sword was considered quite unimportant by the samurai. The order of prestige for samurai weapon mastery was the bow, then the spear, then the sword. It was thought of as embarrassing to be forced into using your sword. The importance placed on the samurai sword came from the peasant class--samurai often wore their sword around town and used it on peasants that got uppity. The peasants came to think of the sword as something especially important, and when the samurai were gone, the peasants were the ones that took over.
+Dagda Mor That's not true at all. The bow, spear, and gun were always the practical weapons of war, sure, but swords were considered sacred Shinto symbols of warfare and bravery since ancient times in Japan. That's the whole reason *why* samurai wore swords, and why the right to bear a sword and a surname (Myoji-Taito) was the official mark of high social status in the Edo period. Even in the Sengoku period, Ieyasu and Nobunaga maintained huge collections of fine swords, way out of proportion to their usefulness in battle. The samurai really did consider such swords to embody the spirit of their ancestors.
+Copydot But it was still a status symbol, especially once you get into the Tokugawa era when the highest class (Samurai) wore two swords and no one else was permitted to have weapons. Much like pistols in modern armies (1910-2016), it could be used to protect your person in an emergency, but was not a truly effective weapon on the battlefield.
No argument there. But a weapon's usefulness on the battlefield doesn't necessarily equal its cultural importance. There's a reason why a sword is part of Japan's imperial regalia, and not a bow or a spear.
One quick note is that the line about Katsumoto not using guns goes "He NO LONGER uses firearms", meaning that he did do it earlier. This could open up the interpretation that he did indeed run out of ammunition, but simply spun it as a deliberate decision as propaganda.
Absolutely not. Anyone that followed “bushido”, the way of the warrior, could not lie or “spin” the truth. It would dishonour themselves, their family and their ancestors.
Jim Sanderson So living there confers on you knowledge that samurai never betrayef or lied? I guess you could say that no true Christian would tons of things self proclaimed Christians would do.
Jules Brunet (2 January 1838 - 12 August 1911) was a French Army officer who played a famous role in the Japanese Boshin War. He was sent to Japan with the French military mission of 1867 and after the defeat of the shōgun had an important role in the Republic of Ezo. He later became a General and Chief of Staff of the French Minister of War in 1898.
@@Tareltonlives Perry actually shelled the outskirts of Edo in a show of force as he came. Can't believe Nick missed that. He also missed that there was an island during the isolation where the Dutch were allowed to hold a trading base. The Japanese did learn from them about the wider world and studied their knowledge. Thus science in Japanese is still literally called Dutch studies.
My cousin is a college professor. Every new class gets the same warning after their first book report. "Do Not watch a Hollyweard creation and expect to pass a history or literature test."
Ricky Ray that is a great idea. And can show the corruption and such with in it's government at the time being the Templars. Tis a good period actually to choose for the assassin's creed game.
Apart from the guns, the only real problem of this movie for me is that it over-romanticizes the samurai. Yes, they had an unique and amazing culture of honor and self-sacrifice, but they were also brutal warlords and landlords who were the minority elite on top of an highly oppressive societal hierarchy. They literally had the right to do as they please with the peasants living on their lands, even killing them for no reason whatsoever. The samurai class also owned ALL the land and collected taxes from the peasants living there. Because of that the modernization of Japan didn't only lead to the decomposition of the samurai feudal system and the old traditions, it also led to a lot more freedom for the ordinary Japanese people (who were the vast majority of the population anyway). This is something that the movie almost completely misses, maybe apart from the character of Omura, who hates the samurai class with a passion and wants to destroy them. Yet he is portrayed almost as a "villain", while he actually has pretty good and objective reasons to do as he did. I still love the film though, don't get me wrong.
The lords owned the land. The samurai didn't own shit. There was still a class system based on old wealth. Often these old wealth people could buy a samurai title, though they were not actually fighters.
Lyubomir Ivanchev that's Tru but most civilizations at that time was the same all over the world and I we always over romantisize things though from every culture
My japanese friend told me that their general view of the samurai is that they were corrupt. The ninjas on the other hand were just peasants, thats why their main method of attack is throwing; they just basically throw whatever they can grab and then run when the samurai come attacking the peasants.
Joseph Schultz I agree. He does make some pretty entertaining movies and he’s a good actor. Of course the only movies I’ll go to the theater and watch are Marvel movies.
Yes, at the end of 16th century Japanese were the biggest manufacturers and users of fire arms in the world. Or close. They just failed to modernise their weapons for.. two centuries.
@@Ash_Hudson How so? That made it so they couldn't import modernised weapons that other countries made into Japan but how does that prevent them from modernising and improving them themselves?
Oda nobunaga is notorious for his strategic use of fire arms in the sengoku jidai which led to the tokugawa shogunate 300 years or more before the boshin war
@J N Morgan he took far longer than Hideyoshi did. Taking 10 years to take out the Ikko Ikki while few of Hideyohi's campaigns lasted more than a few months.
TheBeastMan rewatching this movie for the first time in years after playing about 100 straight hours of Total War Shogun 2, and I absolutely lost my SHIT at that. Holy crap.
***** that is cause he is insane. I am not kidding! Even Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee would say nope nuh uh on climbing the world's tallest building without much support. And even the world's most experienced stuntman would tell you where you get stick it if you wanted him to hang off a airplane with no parachute and only a harness and couple of cables
That is one thing I find to be total bull. Samurai had no dishonor in ranged weapons. Their first weapon of choice was the bow and when Europeans introduced the musket, they absolutely loved it. It was only when it started being mass produced so peasants could wield it that the gun started falling out of favor but it didn't stop them from using ranged weaponry.
@CK Lim The Portuguese did trade technology: the introduction of firearms in Japan was made by the Portuguese. The Japanese adopted the early musket, the Portuguese Arcabuz (Arquebus), as Tanageshima. The Dutch pressure for the exclusion of the Portuguese, in the context of the global war against Portugal and Spain, would only take some effect after the Christian revolt around Nagasaki. The Portuguese also translated the first dictionary of Japanese to a European language, the Nippo Jisho. The many Portuguese contributions to Japan are known as the Nanban trade, and this is celebrated annually in Japan.
@CK Lim Those Chinese archaci cannons can hardly be counted as actual firearms used by the Japanese but I see your point. But both the Dutch and the Portuguese shared a lot of technology with Japan and other foreigners. Portugal, particularly, has a long history of technological exchange all around the world.
They went from an isolationist feudal country to one of the largest and powerful Asian Empires in the World in less than 80 years, then economically destroyed in World War II to becoming one of the largest most powerful world economies in a span of less than 30 years.
it's because Japanese people are really hard workers, there is even a thing were Japanese people die from over working themselves, it has also led to problems with their population, too many people are focusing on work and not having children and lots of young adults take up celibacy, it's kinda sad really, i hope that situation turns around.
Fantastic movie through and through, and the music gets me eeeeevery single time. Both this and Master and Commander are amongst my absolute favs when I want to immerse myself into a period in history, when it comes to movies. Love them so, so much!
This is one of my favorite movies, but it's also kind of a dichotomy. As a historian, I consider it a guilty pleasure, but as a student of filmmaking, I find it very well written, acted, and directed. Nonetheless it's one of the few movies starring a scientologist that I allow myself to watch.
Hi - thank you for the improved view of history in The Last Samurai. Only one small objection - when, in 1620 or so when the Tokugawa decided to ban all foreigners from Japan, the major focus of concern was not the local balance of power, but was instead their knowledge of what had happened in the Philippines, with the takeover by Spain being led by the Jesuits. Support for this argument is the ruthless suppression of Christianity by the shogunate after the closing of Japan. Jesuits had arrived in 1549, and Dutch and English traders were happy to tell the shogunate that the Jesuits were the front lines of the Spanish taking over. The ban on Christianity was not lifted until 1873. The shogunate knew the importance of information, and the top ruling class were far more informed about world events than they are given credit for. When Perry showed up, the shogunate knew what had happened in China with the Opium Wars. They were not technologically inept, but they were seriously behind in the driving technologies of the west. They did recognize it as a new game. They then threw themselves into the new game a bit late, as empire-building was suddenly passe and evil when they tried it in WWII. "Silence" is coming out soon, you can delve into the history of Christianity in Japan then!
Ah, the old "Jesuits are demons" line. Figured an apologist for the brutal persecution of Christians would come about. But woe betide you if you suggest Islam be suppressed
16:55 "He is Samurai" and the look on his face. Always gives me the chills. I my opinion those 4 seconds have all the information you needs to understand what samurai means.
What I love about this movie is that the Japanese characters speak Japanese among themselves and not English
Yeah but the main character doesn't speak french even if the historical one is french
@@cupcakechronicles4551 yeah but i'm french so I would have prefered him to be french like the real guy lol
42ndnumber You do realize that the main character isn’t supposed to be French right? He’s an AMERICAN advisor to the Meji government.
His character is just *inspired by a French man....
@@sjappiyah4071 Yeah but the thing is that americans always want to have the glory in every historical event.
It doesn't bother me in reality since the movie is good but I'm just a french man so i'm complaining
@@const6610 ok we get it you hate american films that put glory in them except their enemies like afghanistan movies where people who speak arabic are the bad guys
yet this is one of the few movies where they retain the language of another culture because that is their backdrop to the story its about Japan my guy not French and Japan
heck they could've made a film just Japanese if they wanted to but that would force the actors to just talk in english since its American made
edit: rather not force but WILL make the actors just speak english for the actual audience to understand
One of the few Tom Cruise films where you forget it’s Tom Cruise and you just see the character.
True. Though my favourite actor he is so big that Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise. He cant hide. But in this he does a fucking amazing Job. Collateral, Magnolia is also some. I also believe Eyes Wide Shut is at same level.
@@ImperialMJG Don't forget Tropic Thunder, one of his finest roles to date.
@@MrGwf1000 you beat me to it. I think it's his best role
He's pretty good in " Interview With A Vampire " as well
Its his best film
OUR MEN ARE RUNNING FROM THE FIELD OF BATTLE!! A MOST SHAMEFUL DISPLAY
OUR HIDDEN UNITS HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED!
+Sean Lau A BLACK DAY; OUR GENERAL HAS FALLEN!
AN, AMBUSH AND AMBUSH SIR!
+Gunter Barkmann An....
OUR GENERAL IS IN GRAAAAVE DANGER MY LORD
As far as the "not using guns" thing goes, I like to focus on the line "NO LONGER dishonors himself by using firearms". "No longer" being the key words, which implies that he is well versed in their use, as history would also suggest.
I like to think that he chooses to no longer use them because he knows his rebellion is not a winnable war, but a message to the emperor to not forget the old ways.
He has condensed his tactics down to only the most "honorable" and symbolic ones, Only using the things that the imperial army has "forgotten" or compromised on.
He fights not as the samurai actually fight, but as the legends and stories SAY they fight. Blade and bow, discipline and tradition. Anything less is just another losing battle by an inferior force
Annoying thing is they missed an opportunity to show the real reason they stopped using guns. They had run out of ammunition even for muskets let alone modern firearms. That would have shown just how desperate everything truly was.
Yeah, Samurai definitely did fight like this in the era, but they did it just to make a point, knowing they would lose. Like, once time, a military rebellion ended with a regiment of samurai attack a fortified position...with swords and lances against cannons and guns. Yeah, it went about as well as one might expect.
It’s more complex than that. There was a selfish reason for distancing themselves from guns. Mainly being that a peasant could kill a samurai fairly easy.
Still a little bit ridiculous because Saigo Takamori was literally one of the three great nobles who “lead” the Meiji restoration. His brother was an admiral in the modernized Japanese navy. If anything he would’ve been the one pushing for guns and modern technology to be part of the new society. The only thing he didn’t want to change was the power structure of the samurai. Not the tech.
It's clear that movie attempted to compromise historical accuracy with more cinematic approach combined with sending a specific message to the viewers. I would say they did a great job, because it's hard to explain everything over the course of the movie without changing it into straight up documentary. We got a notable samurai dressed in western uniform fighting for emperor, we have a quote about Katsumoto *no longer* using firearms (it means he used them, the art of making them was preserved throughout the shogunate, though obviously they were archaic by the time Meji Restoration happened). Hell, Oda Nobunaga did introduce firearm regiments on scale not used even in Europe at the time (XVI century), but then, he was fascinated by everything western, especially if it furthered his goals. Real life samurais who rebelled were mostly angry about losing their privileged status, which as mentioned in video could be both a blessing and a curse.
My Grandmother was Japanese and when she saw the movie, she talked about the real samurai, Saigo Takamori. He's still revered in Japan as a hero of the Old Ways.
An offer of surrender... Saigo ignore contender
Charles Saint Mifuni T. Made a movie about him
My Great Grandmother did the same. Also part Japanese, even if no one (even my grand parents) look it, like seriously, we just look white. But my family (English) look up to Takamori too. He is a hero.
He was pardoned shortly after his death by the emperor, with it being said that his rebellion was noble. He did what honor obliged him to do and rebel. He was therefore a hero, fighting a losing battle as he had to.
One could argue this was part of the greater plan of increasing nationalism in Japan and militarism. The samurai had to be removed to reinforce the emperor's power, but in honoring their stand the government reinforced the idea of honorable dearh for your country. An ideal built so strong that we would eventually see them fight as they did in the second world war
He is. Perhaps the epytome of the "Tragic Hero" concept, or the idea that a man doesnt need to succede to become a Hero, but to stand for its ideals and take them all the way. Theres a statue of Takamori and his dog in Ueno Park!
One thing I really like about this movie is that Algren actually participated in the raid on the Native Americans even though he opposed it. Unlike the cliché that the hero just stays back and therefore is innocent, it gives a sense of realism
And not only that. He was scarred by it, and didn't like celebrating it.
I'm Native, and descended from survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
It's something that's stayed with my family, since it's happened
And to see Algren, a US Calvary member (albeit, a fictional one) suffer from what happened, and carry that guilt and grief with him.
Really humanized for me, the Military that had eliminated many of my ancestors relatives
They were human beings as well. Many fresh from the Civil War, when the Indian Wars began.
It's traumatizing for both sides, and that's what makes this movie special to me
*Arugaren
That's one of my favorite aspects of the film. Instead of the great hero that comes to save the samurai or some shit it's a story of a flawed person finally gaining redemption even though the samurai die. He's able to show a country what they tried to destroy for the sake of modernism is still important for its history. You shouldn't destroy your traditions and history. You should embrace it. He redeems himself for doing what he failed to do and couldn't for the natives in the U.S
@@bradleykalinoski99427not only does he not save the Samurai but in fact it's their culture and dedication to discipline and honor that eventually redeems Algren.
It may not be the most historically accurate movie but it sure has a great story with well written characters.
another interesting and human aspect of him is that he stops drinking and then he starts drinking again
"our men are running from the battlefield, a shamefull display"
me playing shogun 2 while watching this viedeo
"Wait what?"
jocelyn v
SPAMS ODA ASHIGARU WITH MALICIOUS INTENT
When you are watching a murder movie with your dad and he says ah the glory days
:Look of concern:
i was playng medieval 2 when i heard that i started shearching routen man then i routed cuz i thought that my cavalry routed and got defeated
After years of playing Shogun 2, my only regret is no yet winning as Takeda on legondary.
Hahaha, yes! Shamfur Dispray!
When Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay, he said to Japan “Could you be any more closed?”
BRAHHHH
XD FRIENDly quote you got there
History of the entire world I guess?
😆😆😆
The bushido blade is 🔥
"From the moment they wake, they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue."
Ideals to live by.
Yeah, problem is that, unlike in their era, our lives have gotten so much more hectic, we have such limited time, time has gotten really valuable, everything has to be done fast nowadays.
What I am saying is that its difficult to devote yourself to everything with our limited time, the only thing you can devote yourself to is your job or a personal goal if you can make the time for it.
@@MercenaryZack I am of the firm belief that everyone needs at least one thing in their life where they can pursue perfection. We need that to balance and center our lives. It doesn't have to be something grand, but even something simple as making what you consider the perfect cup of coffee in the morning, or organizing your closet perfectly, hell even parking in your spot perfectly centered, something. Everyone needs at least one thing in their life they can have pride in.
Pursuing perfection does not imply you'll ever achieve it, that's the main realization: it's the effort you put into that goal that grows you as a person.
There is no destination of perfection, there is only a journey.
@@RobertMorgan What an inspiring comment. Thank you. Truly.
Explains my Couch Potato Grandmaster level....
It just doesnt fit the mold unless youre a special chaste or just survive off the land. People have jobs (rarely related to some kind of passion) and thats that, you dont work you die.
You missed one of the best parts of the movie, where the Emperor Meiki asks "Tell me how he died and Algren responds "I will tell you how he lived."
Great line. But that Bruce Lee biopic movie of the 90's got the upper hand on that line, right at the end too.
So the point is not whether it was historically accurate, yes they knew each other. Also not whether it was in a different movie. If this was a thread on the Bruce Lee biopic I would have commented similarly. The point s that he did not want to hear about a bad moment in a good mans life but wanted to hear about the good life of a good man.
@B Redfern If Katsumoto was a good man, he wouldn't have been fighting for the rights of the Samurai, which included the right to kill commoners for bumping into him by accident. Let's not kid ourselves: Algren was a deluded man who fought for the wrong side.
@@Ares99999 While in todays society your comments would be valid you are judging a far different time and place. The people he was fighting against were far more brutal. The Samurai fought for and defended the country. There were historical reasons for the feudal nature of the time and to judge his actions by todays standard are wrong. That does not mean we should return to those time, the freedoms we enjoy today were non existent back then and people took advantage of this, hence the Samurai and what they did to defend the entire country. There is an over-riding desire by people to judge past leaders through the lens of todays peaceful world. In reality our world has been in the longest standing peaceful time in history and has distorted our perceptions to the realities of the past.
@B Redfern
The samurai did not 'fight for and defend their country'. They fought, at best, for one of the many hundreds of warlords that feuded over Japan for centuries. Then Tokugawa won and managed to impose a certain level of peace. In which time the Samurai became less and less useful. Many Samurai then quit being Samurai because there were other ways to make a living, and fighting was no longer omnipresent.
And even in the timeframe of the movie, the Samurai were judged to be obsolete, and had been for some time beforehand. Their privileges being revoked - like killing people who bothered you - was a progressive thing.
And unlike dumbasses like Katsumoto and the imbeciles that followed him, most Samurai were reasonable enough to understand that there was no going back. Instead they adapted, most of them becoming officials or officers in the army or navy.
Algren fought for the inflexible side. The one unwilling and unable to change. Tragic it may be, but right it never will.
There is an over-riding desire by people to distort perceptions of samurai and pirates and knights - who were all pretty darn brutal people - into something romantic. The reality of the past was that samurai were armed thugs. Period.
Fun fact:
1) flintlock musket was one of the traditional weapons of the samurai since 16th century.
2) Just as there are traditional iaijutsu, kenjutsu and sojutsu (spear) schools there are also traditional teppojutsu (gunpowder weapon) schools.
3) Takamori's rebel army used rifles and artillery just like the Imperial Army.
4) Takamori was wearing a western style commander uniform in his last stand.
No, no it wasn't, the Japanese used a rifle known as the tanegashima, they were the Japanese reproductions of Portuguese matchlocks from the mid-16th century. These were inferior to flintlocks. Other than that, I agree with the rest.
I think you mean matchstick guns
@@DuckiestBoat959 matchlock*
Interesting. Wasn't it the Chinese who invented gun powder anyway? Weren't they pretty consistently fighting each other? There must've been some exchange proir to European influence.
Hey Morrissey: Take a Geographics class.
The end of the battle on the field always brings me to tears. As Nick said, it is the perfect metaphor for times changing. Like English Knights getting shot down by the British Colonial Army's rows of soldiers. It is the perfect metaphor for times changing. As one way of life dies, another one rises above the ashes.
„What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
Matthew 16:26 NIV
And like knights being shot down by line infantry ... it never happened lol. Their armor is also inacurate for the day. They wore metal plate armor, not lacquer.
@@thestanfordreport its a metaphor dumbass. Of course it didnt happen. Learn to read
And it is a sad thing to see it go.
idiots being shot because they're too stubbornly prideful to use guns isnt worthy of respect or admiration.
Reasons for fighting for a cause....
The Last Samurai-The main character is mesmerized by the Samurai and their cause
The Avatar- Jake Sully wants to get laid
Having not had the use of his penis for years, of course he does!
@@GUNNER67akaKelt fucking trash AVATAR. Avatar gain popularity because of AVATAR LAST AIRBENDER 😑
Cruise also "got the girl: and did not need an AVATAR to get laid.
The five minutes the extended version of Avatar adds to the opening of the film add a ton to establish Jake's character, which pretty dramatically elevates the film as a whole.
@@jqa16 wot
"Tell me...how did he die?"
"I will tell you how he lived"
With honor
Emperor: "how dare you disobey me".
Lol Katsumoto was his teacher. The emperor was probably thinking “Why did I ask” because he already knew how he lived
@@Sea-qv4sd The point was the Emperor had become a puppet of the political class by then. Sure, he was a living god, but he was kept so isolated from the actual world of his subjects that he really didn't have a clear idea of what was happening save what his advisors wanted him to know. Algren telling him how Katsumoto lived was symbolic, mostly, of reminding the Japanese people what they were losing in the mad dash to "westernize".
"They're all perfect."
One thing you also could have mentioned is that Tom Cruise is not "The Last Samurai" as a lot of people seem to think, and make fun of the movie for. The last samurai in the movie are Katsumoto and his followers, not Tom Cruise.
A lot of people seem to think samurai is singular when it is both singular and plural. I didn't know for a long time either and at one point I realized that samurai are a class and since you need to be born into it tom crukse can't be a real samurai. after that it was obvious that the last samurai is meant as plural and meant the samurai that died in the last battle.
Same thing with "The Last of the Mohicans".
Tom cruise is just the observer and the eyes through which the audience sees the final days of the last samurais.
Devoti
Ok. Not sure what this has to do misinterpreting the title of the movie...
Devoti yeah doesn't have anything to do with the conversation at hand.
And it may have inaccuracies but films have the freedom to take certain liberties. As said otherwise both sides would have used guns for example. But it is still a pretty accurate depiction of the radical change that happened in Japan at this time.
And you can't expect every film about historical events to be 100% accurate. Most medieval films for example are way more innacurate than this movie. And furthermore it never claimed to be accurate.
I loved the scenes were they were simply talking, especially between Katsumoto and Algren.
I will miss their conversations
@@acrispywaffleiron4014 I’m not crying you are!
@@gd88467 AND I'M NOT ASHAMED TO ADMIT IT!!!! T_T
@@acrispywaffleiron4014 Algren’s role as Katsumoto’s kaishakunin is left beautifully ambiguous. Did Algren finish the job by beheading Katsumoto (as per tradition) offscreen, or did he decide against it, not wanting to mirror Bagley’s actions in the previous wars (i.e. scalping)?
Don't you mean Arugureno?
"Transition from feudal to imperial Japan"
They skipped castle age
It's called fast Imperial. All that time the Japanese spent not fighting amongst themselves let them hoard enough food and gold to power through Castle and jump straight into Imperial so they could rush out Elite Samurai, Cannon Galleons, and Hand Canoneers. They really had no choice when every other player was in Imperial at that point.
😂😂😂 Hidden tech upgrade
That moment when Age of Empires is ignored...
*Sad person noises.*
castles existed in Japan since almost 1000 years earlier... just show how ignorant you are... as expected from a ignorant gringo
@@boro3454 ikr its not like its a joke or anything that u didnt fucking understand cuz you were a smartass no of course not he was talking seriously
"Tell me, how did he die?"
*Starts to weep*
*Looks up to the emperror*
"I will tell you... how he lived."
This moment gives me chills, tears and a smile every single time
Possibly my favorite scene in movie history.
(sniff sniff)
I'm not crying, you're crying!
Mine is when worm tail says "he is samurai"
@@nolanlarocque2967 same here. The little bow and smile he gives allgren is perfect haha
@@nolanlarocque2967 Mine Too!!!!
Despite being born into a family of samurai, Yataro Iwasaki founded the Mitsubishi corporation. He made important investments in shipping preceding and following the Meiji Restoration, and he became a successful and wealthy businessman and financier! I think about that every time I see a Mitsubishi on the road.
I heard his company's planes have a bad habit of burning up and crashing :^)
"I think about that every time I see a Mitsubishi on the road". go touch some grass weirdo LOL
I think about that every time I pop a Mitsubishi pill.
A ton of Japanese companies were founded by daimyo. The Shimazu corporation is another one, they make scientific instruments and medical devices.
@@richardmoylind7621Eat some lead reject.
Must be sad that no one loves you...
Ken Watanabe is a fantastic actor. Loved him in this and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Yeah, and also very hot. Those who have seen Memoirs Of Geisha know...
yup
I wish he had more scenes in "Godzilla".
He is the Morgan Freeman of Japan
+Terézia Marková I watch memries of a gaystar I liked it to
A friend just told me about this channel and man it's fantastic. Great videos! Educating and entertaining. Well done, Nick!
Nice seeing you here
wtf are you talking about hater?
Why are you here?
I want to like this comment, but then I would ruin the unintentional "Order 66" reference...
Star Wars Explained i
That scene of the Samurai being mowed down by the Gatling guns always gets me.
it does
Vanders it's beautiful in a way
Right on! Who cares about history when we can have cool scenes with lots of blood and drama?
Yes, and somehow it remembers me first world war too, some generals were still trying to use old war tactics and the result was many men dying like the samurais in this movie
Zer0MX But unlike the Samurai, WW1 soldiers wanted to live afterwards. Still a valid observation though.
KATSUMOTO: “The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.”
KATSUMOTO: “Perfect. They are all perfect.”
It gets me everytime
@@enriquemattiacci451 0
Enough with the "noble savage" narratives already! Everyone who's more or less educated knows how really savage and cruel all those peoples were up until a few decades ago. Just look up Japanese atrocities during WWII in Asia... Do you think they were any better during their "ancient history"?
Also Katsumoto: Wow look blossoms during my death scene. How convenient.
@@ZenkiCoyote lol thing is those trees are everywhere in Japan..
Gut wrenching, that's how the final battle hit me. What an amazing film. Cruise's arguably finest film.
Roger H Werner I agree it was most likely cruise’s best film he’s done
'Born 4th of july', maybe?
Edge of tomorrow in my opinion
A Dog cruise’s best sci-fi film.....hmmm edge of tomorrow oblivion or war of the worlds......but this is one of my favorite films of his
@@atomicrc5189 Minority Report is another good Cruise science-fiction flick.
Tokugawa Japan wasn't closed to all foreigners. The Dutch had a trade station called Deshima in the Bay of Nagasaki, and this is still reflected in Japanese medical jargon (the Japanese imported European medical knowledge via the Dutch Island), which has Dutch words in it. The Europeans stationed there by the Dutch East India Company were not allowed to enter the Japanese mainland, but they were allowed to import and export goods on a limited scale.
As for this movie, it's a mess historically. However, I am quite fond of it on a metaphorical level. If you view Katsumoto and his Samurai as the metaphorical embodiments of the Old Japan, struggling against the rise of the New Japan, it really works.
+The Iron Historian Totally agree.
+The Iron Historian Yea, kinda irked me that he didn't mention this.
He also forgot to mention Japanese had more and better guns than in europe by the time Tokugawa took over the Shogunate.
+The Iron Historian I just feel the whole 'Japan has to be safed by the white 'Murican!' bit hurts the film.
+Aelius Magnus i was refering to time just after Tokugawa won and bacame shogun, not when they realized they need to modernize in 19th century.
In around 1600 there was propobly more matchlocks than in europe.
America to Japan: You’re going to trade with us and you’re going to like it
TheUnknown 7789 I get the oversimplified referens
Santiago Fortin
Man of culture
BoS to literally everything they touch. "Your tech is ours now and you're going to like it."
You know it'd be really nice if this side of history was taught in the US but usually they gloss over that along with the genocide of the native americans. And pretty much every bad thing we've ever done.
America to Japan many years later: You're not going to trade with us and you're not going to like it
Definitely my favorite Tom Cruise role. I've rarely seen such effective subtly in an actor's performance as with his performance as Algren. So much of the film required him to use nothing but his eyes to convey intense emotions, and goddamn did he nail it.
The last two sequences of the film with Meiji and then Taka contain some of the most effective acting from a leading man I have ever seen. This film is a true gem.
he does a really good job at conveying trauma from participating in war crimes
@@fourshore502 Americans do love their war crimes.
Regardless of any historical inaccuracies this is by far one of my favorite films!
I know historically this film has a lot of inaccuracies; but it's one of my favorite movies of all time! Beautiful film and extremely underated.
Very compelling and yes, underrated to say the least.. i don't mind the historical inaccuracies because it's not based on true characters really, nor does it claim to be..but it is more the telling of a specific time period and struggle , that uses fictional characters to tell us about this specific point of modernization of Japan.. so, I'm not to harsh on it for any historical inaccuracies.. as l would be a film meant to be based on specific people in that time period.. that being said I'm a huge history buff and really enjoy learning more about a time period especially in Japanese history that is really overlooked and you don't really hear much,if anything about.. and this movie does a pretty good job using fictional characters and some pretenses to tell us about this period. All though granted it is glaring with some historical inaccuracies, false motives, and pretenses.. it's a damn good movie and i recommend it to anyone who enjoys history.
couldn't agree more, imho a true modern masterpiece
Some parts are true. By mid 1800s, samurai and bushido was on the decline. They were forbidden to carry swords in public. There was a mini war of Portugal waging a war on Japan before the 1800. Reason is because Portugal ships opium to Japan and the Japanese people didn’t like it and killed all foreigners and the addicts plus Western religion. Portugal win though because of modernize guns and cannons vs ancient swords, spears, and bow and arrow.
It’s just a brief history that no one mention though.
@@jonross2747 What I find amusing was that the movie made praise of General George Armstrong Custer, even though, some would argue he was a reckless idiot that foolishly got himself and all his men killed in battle against the Native Americans, being bested by the chief Sitting Bull and faced an enemy ten times the size of his own troops.
My personal stance that as long as a studio is not being willfully revisionist, they are not technically under obligation to educate audiences.
A small objection; not all foreigners were banned from Japan. Chinese traders were often in Japan, scholars, and what not more. But, even more important perhaps, the Dutch were allowed to trade with the Japanese and were given their own tiny little island in Nagasaki (Deshima) to operate on. On an annual basis they were even summoned to audience with the Shogun. Japan even had Western Studies back then (Rangaku; technically Dtuch studies)
That is true it is one of Japan's history that not everyone knew about
Correct
Great info, my brother.
True - In all, 606 Dutch ships arrived at Dejima during its two centuries of settlement, from 1641 to 1847.
Also, a western man turned samurai isn't that far-fetched , as William Adams from England was ordained the title of samurai in the 1600s after his expedition boat crashed off the coast of Japan and he was held there to provide intelligence and cultural insight into the West. He ended up serving as a key advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the Japanese rulers that paved the way for barring most foreigners from entering Japan in the first place.
Also, most of the military advisors weren't american but prussian, see Jacob Meckel. Meckel left behind a loyal group of Japanese admirers, who, after his death, had a bronze statue of him erected in front of his former army college in Tokyo. Overall, the Imperial Japanese Army intensively oriented its organization along Prusso-German lines when building a modern fighting force during the 1880s. There is a reason why a lot of middle school uniforms look like prussian military uniforms over there
And the French too in the 1850's they trained the shogun's army, they were in fact the only ones to do that since other countries helped the emperor.
I don't know from everything that I read about the Meiji restoration, they modeled the Imperial Navy after the British and then Americans and, the Imperial Army after the Germans
"Fire at will"
Will- "Wait What"
"Will...I'm sorry, orders are orders..."
*grabs torch and throw at Will
Will: ah, fak!
the Crew: which Will?
@@nono-kr7um good soldiers follow orders
Will - "oh no, not again"
Achieving 300 years of development in 20 years...yup that's Japan all right.
It's hard to reconcile this sentence with the later "white savior" comments. That is exactly what happened?! Furthermore, it was 100% the culture of Japan that allowed this success. And for further reflection think of all the nations the US has tried to do the same and failed, that have markedly different cultures.
And look what it has become!
well, it was either adapt to the shifting winds and accelerate development to match the western powers or end up like Imperial China
@@InvestmentBankr I think its due to the already existing unified infrastructure that allowed Japan to adapt so quickly unlike all the others who failed to do so, who were fragmented, my country for example.
@@joevenespineli6389 what country would that be..... I'll wager the lack of a unifying culture, religion, or language are the primary reasons.
This is one of the movies that I will watch whenever it comes on. Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe are just so enjoyable to watch on screen. Plus the theme of striking a balance between new and old always amazes me.
"Shameful Display" savage reference
*Shamefur Dispray
They are levy, what can you spect from them
alex perez need them line infantry at least
Thomas D in the game even line gets rekt by cav
alex perez you soften them up with a nice artillery barrage or Gatling guns on the flanks
Something that always kinda annoyed we was when people would poke fun at "Tom Cruise being the last samurai", when the title refers to the samurai collectively. (Because there's no plural of the word "samurai.") It's a story about the last samurai as a warrior class, not the last dude who was a samurai.
That was my point: "Samurai" is an invariant noun, so it has no actual plural form. You can have one samurai and you can have seven samurai, but you can't have seven samurais.
Also, while moose is an invariant, coyote isn't as it has the plural form coyotes.
Fervidor Many much, moosen.
Podemos URSS same thing in portuguese..
Even if its singular... The last Samurai was Ken Watanabe's character, wasnt he? I was just a little bit taken out of the movie because Tom Cruise becomes one of the best swordfighters in six months.
Fervidor, it was not Algren it was Saigo Takamura, aka Sakamoto.
well Hans Zimmer did a bloody great job in it
It's amazing how much better a movie can be with a great score
Hans Zimmer always does
It's a very good movie, but the score elevates it to a great movie...
Tom Cruise his best role and character he ever played! There i said it.
Agreed
17:54 "Our men are running from the battlefield. A shameful display"
That caught me off-guard LOL
"The men are wavering!"
Total War :D
I whole units was perished my lord! The total war joke I wasn't expect haha
TRIARIIIIIII!!!!!
MY LORD, A GLORIOUS VICTORY WILL SOON BE YOURS
Something that I like about this movie, is that cases like this where an outsider accepts and embraces another culture, actually happend during colonization. A real life example of that is the story of Gonzallo Guerrero. He was a Spaniard that went to the new world with Hernand Cortes to colonise the land, but the boat where he and his crew where sunk due to an enormous storm. He escaped the ship with other of his comrads and naufrage on a beach of the yucatan Peninsula. As soon as they touch land, they were captured by the locan Mayan people and some of them, along with Gonzalo, were sell to slavery and the rest were sacrificed. Gonzallo spend an unknown amount of years as a slave, Gonzalo stared to see the lives of the Maya and stared to learn their language and teach them military techniques to fight against the Spaniards that where slowly colonizing the peninsula. He slowly fell in love with the culture and saved a mayan chief's live from an alligator during a walk. He became a military leader with Mayan battle scars printed on his skin, he wearer the mayan clothes and their earnings. He felt in love with the Mayan chief's daughter and had three children with her. Before dying in battle at the side of the Mayan he wrote to Cortes after he send messengers to save him, he gave them a letter that wrote "For the live that this land of green brought me, I will tell them my brothers (the Spaniards) that I will stay here in the land of my people"
There where actually white samurai and a black one.
A version of Stockholm Syndrome that predates the conceptual term.
@@blackpowderkun Yeah if you take all the incidents between foreigners and Japan, and condensed them into one movie, you basically get The Last Samurai, give or take one or two liberties.
Samurai: trained for their whole lives in the sword, the spear and the bow
Soldier: a conscript from a town 3 months ago that demolishes with superior technology
The power of guns...my friend... The power of guns.
@@magosexploratoradeon6409 The gun eventually changed the whole of Japan no matter if they liked it or not.
Same with the carssbow vs a heavily armored and well trained knight
The samurai used guns
Say hello to my new friend, Shooty McGun from America.
“I am beset by the ironies of my life…”
God, this movie has fantastic writing.
It should be mentioned, that there were still some regulated trades being made with the Dutch during the Sakoku period. Many Japanese learned Dutch from them and some science, as well as news from distant lands, which also explains why they caught up so fast with the rest of the world techwise and were capable of learning English later on. By the way, one of the first interpreters ever sent to America wasn't even surprised with the technology and gadgets he saw.
If you are talking about the first Japanese exhibition to America he was extremely surprised by a lot of things. He was extremely surprised by how technologically advanced they were (not because he saw things he didn't know but instead because he saw how abundant they were) and was most surprised by how wealthy they were. If I remember correctly he was most surprised by the abundance of high quality metal as in America metal scraps and cans litter the ground and beaches while in Japan when a building burns down people flock to grab what ever metal and nails they can as every piece is extremely valuable.
"until the dawn they hold on, only 40 are left at the end.
None alive, none survive shiroyama"
~Sabaton (Shiroyama)
I see you are a man of culture aswell
IMPERIAL FORCE DEFIED, FACING 500 SAMURAI
SURROUNDED AND OUTNUMBERED
60 TO 1, THE SWORD FACE THE GUN
60 TO 1 FACING THE GUN
60 TO 1 CULTURE UNDONE
*end credits*
IN
THE
NAME
OF
GOD!!!
FOR THE GRACE, FOR THE MIGHT OF OUR LORD!
IN THE NAME OF HIS GLORY!
Ugh, Sabaton, comment when you start listening to the Real McKenzies
The really dumb thing about the movie is that they somehow have this stupid no gun rule for Samurai. The dumb thing about it is that in real life, Japan absolutely loved firearms when they first got them from the Portuguese. They loved them so much that they built their own gun foundries and factories and by the end of the 16th and early 17th century, there were more firearms in Japan than the rest of the world combined (I'll bet you never thought you'd hear THAT sentence uttered in seriousness). They even developed the most advanced muskets in the world at the time. They had muskets that could be reliably reloaded and fired in the rain, something that didn't exist in the West until the early 19th century with the percussion mechanism.
The idea that a Samurai would consider guns to be dishonorable is stupid. A real samurai would have used everything and anything they had to their advantage in battle, and totally did.
+Hotshotter3000 Not to mention the Samurai, like any other warrior, was a practical and pragmatic human being. Anything that would give them an edge (including fighting dirty) would be used to its fullest. Heck, even the famed Ronin Miyamoto Musashi would've preferred a firearm if he could get his hands on one.
Nemo003
Musashi was the dirtiest fighting swordsman in history, and a magnificent bastard. He was still a highly skilled sword fighter in his own right.
+Nemo003 case in point,here was a translation from a samurai military manual from the 1600s that basically said if your fighting a strong opponent get your friends or comrades to rush them and hold them down so you can stab them,kill them and take their head
+Hotshotter3000 True. And before the arrival of gun powder, the Samurai's most "civilized" weapon wasn't the sword but the bow.
scantrontheimmortal That's even the case when you realize that on an operational level, the Samurai, many having been educated in the Chinese classics (e.g. Sun Tzu), would use anything and everything to their advantage. Nobunaga made use of superior numbers and the technological edge of firearms in many battles post-Okehazama (Anegawa, campaigns against the Hoganji, even Nagashino), Shingen used cavalry, superior numbers (e.g. 4th battle of Kawanakajima---> Takeda (20000) vs Uesugi (13000), Mikatagahara-------> Takeda (30000) vs Oda-Tokugawa (11000)), AND alliances, particularly against Nobunaga. Or how the Shimazu, despite constantly being the underdog in many of their victories, always relied on the ferocity of their warriors and officers, were the first to actually adopt firearms into their battles, and relied on luring and ambushing the enemy (e.g. Kizaki, Mimigawa, Okitanawate, Hetsugigawa).
“The general actually fought with katsumoto for the emperor”
“He fought with the samurai”
“He IS samurai
Fucking golden
Aside from its historical inaccuracies, this movie is still one of my favorites. The goal of a good movie is to entertain, and the Last Samurai does it really well. It is also one of the few movies that made me, an adult, cry like a baby.
If you want historical accuracy and actually learn something about the Samurai, a documentary will do that job.
Historical accuracy when it came to iaido and kenjutsu in the movie almost didn’t happen. They hired actual trained kendoka and iaido practitioners for this movie. All of them high ranking sensei. They all threatened to walk off the set when they were asked to do things that were fake flashy Hollywood crap. This is why you won’t see anyone but Tom Cruise twirling a sword or other ridiculous fake stuff, and you won’t see anything but traditional swordsmanship as how it was practiced back then.
That Total War: Shogun 2 reference lol
OUAH MEN ARE RUNNING FROM TEH BATTURFEILD, A SHAMEFUR DISPRAY
it' impossibru not to
Ahh this explains a lot about this video. It's as historically accurate as the Tom Cruise movie itself.
@@amp8295 THERE ARE MORE OF YOU WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY, COWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@saffakanera A BRACK DAY, OUAH GENERAL HAS FARREN
I don't know why but I feel an inexplicable need for a movie about the opening of Japan with Matthew Perry playing Commodore Mathew Perry.
"Come on Japan, could you *be* more isolationist?"
Joey and Ross as clumpsy deckhands, or his closest officers, both would be equally great
They have the same head shape.
"Trade with us or get invaded"
Well that just makes the next hundred years until the end of WW2 make so much more sense now.
I cried twice in this movie: once when watching an ancient tradition get wiped from existence by the single turn of a lever, and another when watching a man we’d seen washed with torture in his dreams finally reach that peace he’d never thought he’d get back
The samurai weren’t wiped out until the nukes fell in 1945. Look into the imperial Japanese army command, nearly all samurai pedigree. Lots sided with the Meiji program because they saw the vision of using modernization to turn their sword outward and bring violence to foreign shores rather than rival feudal daimyo and enjoying archaic feudal rights
@@captainahab9602 Warfare between Daimyou was centuries in the past by this point.
The scene where he spars with the wooden sword gets me every time
Yeah those two scenes hit hard, the battle one I always have to fight tears back.
one guy screamed (literally) when 'bob' died. not anyone else, just bob
This is such a great movie. I disagree with the "white savior" trope, however. In this movie they saved him. He wasn't trying to save anyone. He knew the battle was already lost, but he wanted to die fighting for something that he actually believed in.
That's what i got as well. He was a broken man when the samurai captured him. They spared his life, sobered him up, educated him just as much as he educated them and then released him in a mich better state.
He knew there was no way the samurai would win their last stand and he showed that he was willing to follow them in to battle. He did not lead them and the only "white saviour" moment i seen was when katsumoto was almost assassinated.
It's implied at the end that he returns to their village for the woman (i forget her name) to carry on his new life in japan.
LadyGaGa is hot The only thing is, the samurai in the film weren’t portrayed as looking up to Algren.
They respect him as an equal, not quite looking up to him, only when he finally embraces their culture and ways, which takes many months throughout the plot.
He did say this was different though and that they saved him
Most white savior concepts are false, most of the time the minorities/natives are looking up to the white mans technically advanced technologies, not the fact that he is white. In the blind side the white lady adopts a black kid, but she had lots to spare and was nice. If she was asian would it be the asian savior complex. Unless its old propaganda blatantly stating racial superiority its anti-white saltiness .
Well said, sir, very well said.
one of the few historical movies where even though its completely inaccurate, I couldn't help but like the movie.
Basically the Ridley Historical Fiction category with his films: Gladiator, Robin Hood, and Kingdom of Heaven.
The patriot is not just historically inaccurate, it's an outright attack on it. Nothing but revisionist propaganda, but I still absolutely love the movie for its popcorn cinema qualities
The only thing I didn't like in the movie was that the ministers are portrayed as evil and envious people. They were doing what was best for Japan and they were right for the most part of it. Even the prime minister is portrayed as a rich commoner but in reality he was also a samurai and was bound to defend both the emperor and Japan.
@@nunodasilva5449 Not evil, but they certainly could be greedy. Omura always struck me as someone that would have been lower class under the feudal society. But because he was educated and a superb statesman, he is able to raise his station in a modernized Japan.
The portrail of society, clothes, the places and such where very acurate in the last samurai. The story is fiction sure, but the place and culture of the time is spot on.
The reason why Japan expelled all foreigners is because the Christian missionaries were instigating religious revolts. Tokugawa Ieyasu, remembering the whole sohei rebellion incident in mount hiei, wanted to avoid it all costs.
I'm so glad you noticed the difference between Last Samurai and Dances with Wolves regarding the White Savior trope. Algren doesn't come in and save the Samurai, he is humbled and learns from them. There's a reason Japanese audiences loved this film! haha
Isn't that still a race-based trope, the "noble savage"?
@@hkleider Not exactly. it's kind of zigzagged actually. The Japanese are slightly cast in that light at a glance but the Samurai are depicted as Civilized and sophisticated. In fact it's actually inverted with the Japanese (somewhat accurately) considering the Americans savage brutes
@@simonnachreiner8380
I actually find that lampshade(?) The best part.
The Japanese definitely do seem themselves (in this film) as equals to the Americans (which is true). So they, like the Americans. Saw Native Americans (which I am a part of) as mysterious, savage people's
It's real.
And in a way, naive. As at the time, there was big "these people are godless savages" and misinformation on how the various Tribes operated.
The Emperor, asking about the eagle feathers and face paint. Strikes me, as him being curious. Though he'd never likely be able to meet an actual native person (in the films lore)
On the flip side. For me, as a Native viewer of the film. It definitely shows how much power America had over the depictions of Indigenous People. And how they promoted the idea, that we weren't civilized, or had proper religions or cultural customs
Yep, that's one reason why this film was so successful with the Japanese. It treated them as equals, not aliens.
Personally, I still think this is too melodramatic for me to take seriously. It's like Edward Zwick took "Glory" and filled it with twice as much hot air.
4:25 Actually there had been several incidents of Western ships coming to Japan before, not to mention that the Dutch had a trading station in Nagasaki which they had kept since the early Edo period
Not only had westerners arrived to Japan way before Perry and his ships (1853), the japanese version of firearms were a model derived from the portuguese ones, introduced in 1543.
Well, yes, however, the Japanese haven’t really seen any military ships before hand, or at least not in a group and ready to fight. Keep in mind, the Japanese government made it very clear that the only ships the Dutch were allowed to send were merchant ships and they made it even more clear that they would not tolerate any other country’s ships, not even merchant or civilian. Also, keep in mind that while Japan had seen western ships, the Western countries weren’t showing their best, Japan had no idea what a western navy actually meant, even before they closed the country.
The gun boats the US sent were a new experience, not only where they new ships that the Japanese didn’t know how to deal with, it wasn’t even a big deal to the US. The US could of easily of sent more gun boats to Japan and Japan couldn’t even deal with the ones that were there.
@@Redbird-dh7mu there was the Phaeton Incident of 1808 when a british frigate had fired upon the Dutch trading station in Nagasaki and threatened to destroy the japanese ships there, an american expedition to Edo Bay with two warships in 1846, a Royal Navy ship also coming to Edo Bay in 1849, and several french naval expeditions
Mehga sorta, the Dutch were allowed to send ships to their trading station. However, that trading station wasn’t on the mainland and they could only dock that trading station. Any other ship was not allowed
Sir Jaojao and dont Portuguese and Spanish
Of course, the most unbelievable moment in the film is when Algren is left a box containing some Japanese clothing. In the next scene, he appears perfectly dressed, which he apparently managed with no help. I can tell you from experience that *no one* can properly tie a Japanese hakama on the first attempt with no assistance or instruction!
Agreed, I put them on backwards the first time thinking it was correct. Oof.
Diarmid O'Connor no u
As an Aikido blackbelt, I can verify this statement.
Took a month to learn how to properly tie my kendogi, can confirm.
Well been a while since I saw it, but true wearing it without help is not easy
The Last Samurai is hands down my favourite movie of ALL time! I think it was beautiful and perfectly executed in so many ways.
Victory erases all dishonor. Shogun 2 fans will know.
+wig smey "Strangers have come to our shores. They bring weapons of smoke and fire. Weapons that kill without honor, without skill. But these foreigners and their guns can bring a man victory, and victory wipes away dishonor."
+Ian Cabugsa Love shogun 2 , but that saying is incomplete to me. It should go : "Strangers have come to our shores. They bring weapons of smoke and
fire. Weapons that kill without honor, without skill. But these
foreigners and their guns can bring a man victory, and victory wipes
away dishonor. Only for that dishonor to be doubled when judged by history and looked back by the generations to come."
+Ian Cabugsa there you go! I needed someone to actually put it there
Nice
+wig smey ends justify the means, eh?
My lord our men are running from the battle field. Shameful display.
*Shamefur Dispray
yeah haha
Breaking the Samurai forces in Shogun II Meiji Revolution was very easy. Just go in with Infantry and cannons. Setup a strong defense around your cannons and start shooting. They will come rushing in since they don't have many ranged units. At this time, your infantry and Gatling guns simply mow them down.
+Kevin Smith It all depends which domains you fight..for example I played Satsuma and by the time i got to Aizu and Hokkaido they were pretty advanced. AI upgrades themselves too.
18:10 The Shogun 2 Total War audio clip made me chuckle. Nice addition HB :D
It is perfect!
I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING! PLEASE MAKE ME STOP! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
NOOOOOOOOOO
Armand Cowell ah :c
that was awesome
Chokes me up when they kneel in respect at the end.
And the music.....
With only cruise surviving 😐
@C.F.P.N Hans bring ze luger don't underestimate plot armour
@@eldritchart716 its about a 1,000 times thick as the frontal armour of a tiger 2
I'm Japanese and I love this movie so much. I was so reluctant to watch it at first but I am so glad that I put my skepticism aside~
If you watch many of the Samurai movies, they use rifles. The Dutch actually introduced the wheel lock musket/rifle to them. The Japanese were so impressed with it that they told their blacksmiths to start making them for the Samurai.
What about matchlocks? How'd that get into Japan?
@@amp8295 matchlocks and cannons arrived in Japan in 1500s through the Portuguese and Dutch merchants and matchlocks were commonly used in their wars afterward. Japan even produced their own matchlocks called Tanegashima.
I do not know much about the Boshin war that is the background of this movie, but I am sure the Japanese were using rifles and cannons and probably gatling guns besides their traditional weapons
The Japanese first had guns in the 1200's from China. But they were simple as hell, basically a hand held tiny cannon.
The Portuguese were stranded on a junk ship in Tanegashima, the Japanese lord of this Island got two of the matchlock firearms off these men (supposedly bought them). He then had the Japanese make them in the thousands, this rendered a European invasion impossible.
If the Japanese didn't do this so quickly then the Japanese without a doubt would have been invaded just like everyone else in Asia was.
I felt like I was turning to dust when I saw the final charge of samurai getting mowed down by the gatling guns. I cried.
At the 18:10 mark there is a sound clip from "Total War: Shogun 2." This is why I love this channel.
SHAMEFUR DISPRAY
I like how you included a lot of scenes from Kagemusha, the original (and historically accurate) case of horseback samurai charging and being mowed down by guns.
I noticed you steered clear of the ninja scene. Ninjas are so good at their job there isn't even any historical proof they wore those black pyjamas :D
What people think of as "ninja clothing" is kind of like the horned helmets that Vikings only wore in operas. Japanese stage plays, the crew changing scenery wore black to symbolize to the audience they were meant to be ignored. So when you wanted ninjas in your play... having someone dressed in black suddenly attack was surprising, as to a trained audience they seemed to come out of nowhere.
In reality, ninjas not wanting to be noticed... probably just wore what everyone around them was wearing. A special identifiable uniform or clothing style runs counter to their goal to not be noticed lol.
I personally love that scene. It’s just out of nowhere, bears no relevance to the plot, and is never discussed again. It’s hilarious. Does take you out of the movie for a bit but you quickly forget it in regards to the story. First time I saw it I was cracking up
I am always amazed that Ninja (忍者) and Kuroko (黒子) are confused.
@Lukas Antonius very true. And the occasions that did require them to be all sneaky sneaky, they didnt wear all black. It is most likely they wore a brown or blue color. There were no skyscrapers then to cast these massive shadows. Black would have stuck out more than help conceal. Brown would help them blend in to their surroundings.
Wasn't the look given to ninjas actually assassins? I read somewhere that it really was of middle eastern origin not so much Japanese? (The appearance, not existence)
Very well done. Thank you for pointing out the Samurai's use of guns centuries earlier. It really bugged me about the film. Honour had nothing to do with it. Oda Nobunaga himself embraced it when the "foreigners" (gaijin) arrived. At one point, Japan had more guns than all the nations of Europe combined! That's how common the gun was. But nonetheless the sword was always the honourable weapon that is considered to be the "soul" of the Samurai. Thanks again.
Actually, the sword was considered quite unimportant by the samurai. The order of prestige for samurai weapon mastery was the bow, then the spear, then the sword. It was thought of as embarrassing to be forced into using your sword.
The importance placed on the samurai sword came from the peasant class--samurai often wore their sword around town and used it on peasants that got uppity. The peasants came to think of the sword as something especially important, and when the samurai were gone, the peasants were the ones that took over.
+Dagda Mor That's not true at all. The bow, spear, and gun were always the practical weapons of war, sure, but swords were considered sacred Shinto symbols of warfare and bravery since ancient times in Japan. That's the whole reason *why* samurai wore swords, and why the right to bear a sword and a surname (Myoji-Taito) was the official mark of high social status in the Edo period.
Even in the Sengoku period, Ieyasu and Nobunaga maintained huge collections of fine swords, way out of proportion to their usefulness in battle. The samurai really did consider such swords to embody the spirit of their ancestors.
+Copydot But it was still a status symbol, especially once you get into the Tokugawa era when the highest class (Samurai) wore two swords and no one else was permitted to have weapons. Much like pistols in modern armies (1910-2016), it could be used to protect your person in an emergency, but was not a truly effective weapon on the battlefield.
No argument there. But a weapon's usefulness on the battlefield doesn't necessarily equal its cultural importance. There's a reason why a sword is part of Japan's imperial regalia, and not a bow or a spear.
+Copydot I completely agree
One quick note is that the line about Katsumoto not using guns goes "He NO LONGER uses firearms", meaning that he did do it earlier. This could open up the interpretation that he did indeed run out of ammunition, but simply spun it as a deliberate decision as propaganda.
I always thought that was the purpose of that line.
Absolutely not. Anyone that followed “bushido”, the way of the warrior, could not lie or “spin” the truth. It would dishonour themselves, their family and their ancestors.
Jim Sanderson Oh really? Never lie or spin truth? You need to do some readings.
PatrickOMulligan No. I don’t need to do any reading. I live there for 3 1/2 years. I know what it’s like, been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
Jim Sanderson So living there confers on you knowledge that samurai never betrayef or lied?
I guess you could say that no true Christian would tons of things self proclaimed Christians would do.
Jules Brunet (2 January 1838 - 12 August 1911) was a French Army officer who played a famous role in the Japanese Boshin War. He was sent to Japan with the French military mission of 1867 and after the defeat of the shōgun had an important role in the Republic of Ezo. He later became a General and Chief of Staff of the French Minister of War in 1898.
Matthew C. Perry: "Open the Country. Stop having it be closed."
lol
Fellow Officer looks at Perry: "What the hell did you just say?"
Perry: "SHUSH!"
KNOCK KNOCK. IT'S AMERICA.
Hyun K. #TheEntireHistoryOfJapanIGuess
@@Tareltonlives Perry actually shelled the outskirts of Edo in a show of force as he came. Can't believe Nick missed that. He also missed that there was an island during the isolation where the Dutch were allowed to hold a trading base. The Japanese did learn from them about the wider world and studied their knowledge. Thus science in Japanese is still literally called Dutch studies.
I don't care what anyone says, The Last Samurai is a GREAT movie
In my top favorites of movies.
@Rodycaz They can stay mad while everyone else enjoys good movies lol
@Rodycaz but he's not a white saviour, if anything he fails if it was a savior role and if anything he's just a combatant and an observer
Lol, why would you? Derp...
Ok boomer.
This is one of my favourite movies. The last scene when the army bowed to the fallen samurai made my cry.
the armys commander probably got fired after that
Wasn't he stabbed with a sword?
My cousin is a college professor. Every new class gets the same warning after their first book report.
"Do Not watch a Hollyweard creation and expect to pass a history or literature test."
Instead play a historical game to ace a history and literature test.
@@FJhei Instead, watch history youtubers
Instead, listen to Sabaton! Then research the hell out of everything you hear!
I watched the History Buffs episode on Zulu and got an A on my essay on the movie. There was no way my prof had seen it though so that helped a lot.
TLS is actually really quite accurate by Hollywood standards.
Cool how they made New Zealand look like feudal Japan!!
A little more to the west, or whatever is your catchfrase in Tintin. ;)
Or as Austin Powers put it "Isn't it amazing how England looks in NO way like Southern California?"
And looks quite similar to Middle-Earth too! I swear I saw a hobbit behind the cherry trees in that final battle
New Zealand can look like anything if you need it to be
With enough money (and tax incentives) you can make New Zealand look like anywhere.
I always wanted a Assassins Creed game to take place during the Meiji Restoration instead of Feudal Japan, much more interesting.
Plus we already have hundreds of games set in feudal times, the Meiji restoration feels more interesting for sure.
Ricky Ray that is a great idea. And can show the corruption and such with in it's government at the time being the Templars. Tis a good period actually to choose for the assassin's creed game.
You guys might be interested in the game Ghost of Tsushima , the E3 reveal was amazing.
must agree here haha
it call the ghost of tsukishima
Apart from the guns, the only real problem of this movie for me is that it over-romanticizes the samurai. Yes, they had an unique and amazing culture of honor and self-sacrifice, but they were also brutal warlords and landlords who were the minority elite on top of an highly oppressive societal hierarchy. They literally had the right to do as they please with the peasants living on their lands, even killing them for no reason whatsoever. The samurai class also owned ALL the land and collected taxes from the peasants living there. Because of that the modernization of Japan didn't only lead to the decomposition of the samurai feudal system and the old traditions, it also led to a lot more freedom for the ordinary Japanese people (who were the vast majority of the population anyway). This is something that the movie almost completely misses, maybe apart from the character of Omura, who hates the samurai class with a passion and wants to destroy them. Yet he is portrayed almost as a "villain", while he actually has pretty good and objective reasons to do as he did.
I still love the film though, don't get me wrong.
It is a very romanticized view of the samurai, but to be fair the Japanese have been doing that before Hollywood did.
The lords owned the land. The samurai didn't own shit.
There was still a class system based on old wealth. Often these old wealth people could buy a samurai title, though they were not actually fighters.
the samurai (and ninja/shinobi, even) are as romanticized as much as pirates are.
Lyubomir Ivanchev that's Tru but most civilizations at that time was the same all over the world and I we always over romantisize things though from every culture
My japanese friend told me that their general view of the samurai is that they were corrupt. The ninjas on the other hand were just peasants, thats why their main method of attack is throwing; they just basically throw whatever they can grab and then run when the samurai come attacking the peasants.
Man the beginning of your video, the charge of the Light Brigade, Zulu tribesmen, etc. was a masterpiece.
Charge of the Scots Guards at Waterloo. It's his original intro.
One of Tom Cruise’s best movies.
and most underated mostly because nobody talks as much as his others
Still bad though lol
I always have to remind myself that while he's a huge douchebag, he's still a pretty good actor.
Joseph Schultz I agree. He does make some pretty entertaining movies and he’s a good actor. Of course the only movies I’ll go to the theater and watch are Marvel movies.
the only tom cruise film actually worth watching, it saddens me to think that films like this no longer get made
Im so glad i found you
As am I. Welcome to the community :)
Same here, just found this channel and this is exactly the kind of thing I stay up to 5 AM watching to.
+James Heineman very early version of gun were not that good as they were inaccurate or just plain dangerous as a gun.
+logan fitzgerald Same I just found this channel and I love it!
+logan fitzgerald I just did, and I'm very glad!
"The First Weeaboo"
Meester Writer HAHAHAHAHABA)!!
Well, actually not. That'll be William Adams
Beaten by William Adams 250 years ago :P
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA (serious)
HAHAHAHAH
The lieutenant’s reaction when the samurai are being gunned down is incredible
Ignoring the small detail that even during the sengoku period ......
They used GUNS !!!!
Yes, at the end of 16th century Japanese were the biggest manufacturers and users of fire arms in the world. Or close. They just failed to modernise their weapons for.. two centuries.
Yoshisuke A lot of that had to do with the isolationism enforced by the Tokugawa shogunate.
@@Ash_Hudson How so? That made it so they couldn't import modernised weapons that other countries made into Japan but how does that prevent them from modernising and improving them themselves?
NPC #13375005 It didn't prevent them; that's a good point, but I was saying isolationism didn't help. To a large extent.
@@Ash_Hudson That is true.
I’ve been blogging about Japan for 23+ years. This was an excellent overview of a great film and totally balanced and accurate. Kudos!
Oda nobunaga is notorious for his strategic use of fire arms in the sengoku jidai which led to the tokugawa shogunate 300 years or more before the boshin war
B S RGR whoa. You're the most coolest.
@J N Morgan he took far longer than Hideyoshi did. Taking 10 years to take out the Ikko Ikki while few of Hideyohi's campaigns lasted more than a few months.
Handling a rifled musket is still radically different from a matchlock.
Right they even perfected tactics with bamboo barriers smh
One of the things Nobunaga is famous for is even his usage of the three row rifle volleys in Japanese warfare.
Film brings me to tears each time I watch it. hands off to the excellent direction and score.
Oh my god that total war reference!! ''how soldiers are running from the battlefield! a shameful display!'' XD made my day
TheBeastMan rewatching this movie for the first time in years after playing about 100 straight hours of Total War Shogun 2, and I absolutely lost my SHIT at that. Holy crap.
TheBeastMan ikr
I thought it was Tom Cruise's best performance of his career
***** that is cause he is insane. I am not kidding! Even Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee would say nope nuh uh on climbing the world's tallest building without much support. And even the world's most experienced stuntman would tell you where you get stick it if you wanted him to hang off a airplane with no parachute and only a harness and couple of cables
***** aka BATSHIT FUCKING INSANE 🤣😂
Vlad Xavier does*
I think Collateral is his best performance
David Jensen when i was a kid i couldnt believe he is the same guy who made mission imposible
3:44 “Open the Country. Stop...having it be closed.”
I was thinking the same, with the music as well lol
Heiji Subaru Bill Wurtz is with us always.
I see you are a man of culture as well
@@Ballin4Vengeance I try sometimes.
This is some serious historical foreshadowing
Whoever thought of adding the "shameful display" line from Total War Shogun 2... pure gold! You had me cracking up at home. Liked and subscribed 😆😆😆
That is one thing I find to be total bull. Samurai had no dishonor in ranged weapons. Their first weapon of choice was the bow and when Europeans introduced the musket, they absolutely loved it. It was only when it started being mass produced so peasants could wield it that the gun started falling out of favor but it didn't stop them from using ranged weaponry.
Samurai weren't stupid. Range = advantage. The entire armor and weapon system was designed to facilitate range fighting, bows then muskets.
They we're mounted archers at first, and pretty much nobody pictures them being mounted archers when they think of samurai.
Pretty much. They'd been using muskets since the Portuguese came along, and knew about big ships since they still traded with the Dutch at Nagasaki
The battle was stupid, Samurai were trained archers. Use that.
Andrew G, Japan wasn't in civil war at that time. Google Edo period.
*but you know, no one was allowed acces to japan except for the netherlands ofcourse...*
Thank you! Dejima, obviously
What about the Portuguese ?
I thought that was Portugal, because of a decree by the Pope or something.
@CK Lim The Portuguese did trade technology: the introduction of firearms in Japan was made by the Portuguese. The Japanese adopted the early musket, the Portuguese Arcabuz (Arquebus), as Tanageshima.
The Dutch pressure for the exclusion of the Portuguese, in the context of the global war against Portugal and Spain, would only take some effect after the Christian revolt around Nagasaki.
The Portuguese also translated the first dictionary of Japanese to a European language, the Nippo Jisho. The many Portuguese contributions to Japan are known as the Nanban trade, and this is celebrated annually in Japan.
@CK Lim Those Chinese archaci cannons can hardly be counted as actual firearms used by the Japanese but I see your point. But both the Dutch and the Portuguese shared a lot of technology with Japan and other foreigners. Portugal, particularly, has a long history of technological exchange all around the world.
They went from an isolationist feudal country to one of the largest and powerful Asian Empires in the World in less than 80 years, then economically destroyed in World War II to becoming one of the largest most powerful world economies in a span of less than 30 years.
TheBaldr pretty impressive I guess
it's because Japanese people are really hard workers, there is even a thing were Japanese people die from over working themselves, it has also led to problems with their population, too many people are focusing on work and not having children and lots of young adults take up celibacy, it's kinda sad really, i hope that situation turns around.
You give people enough kilotons or democracy and freedom, and they'll shape up real nice.
Provided they have the capacity to.
TheBaldr The power of anime
And subsidies*
Fantastic movie through and through, and the music gets me eeeeevery single time. Both this and Master and Commander are amongst my absolute favs when I want to immerse myself into a period in history, when it comes to movies. Love them so, so much!
This is one of my favorite movies, but it's also kind of a dichotomy. As a historian, I consider it a guilty pleasure, but as a student of filmmaking, I find it very well written, acted, and directed. Nonetheless it's one of the few movies starring a scientologist that I allow myself to watch.
Hi - thank you for the improved view of history in The Last Samurai.
Only one small objection - when, in 1620 or so when the Tokugawa decided to ban all foreigners from Japan, the major focus of concern was not the local balance of power, but was instead their knowledge of what had happened in the Philippines, with the takeover by Spain being led by the Jesuits.
Support for this argument is the ruthless suppression of Christianity by the shogunate after the closing of Japan. Jesuits had arrived in 1549, and Dutch and English traders were happy to tell the shogunate that the Jesuits were the front lines of the Spanish taking over. The ban on Christianity was not lifted until 1873.
The shogunate knew the importance of information, and the top ruling class were far more informed about world events than they are given credit for.
When Perry showed up, the shogunate knew what had happened in China with the Opium Wars. They were not technologically inept, but they were seriously behind in the driving technologies of the west. They did recognize it as a new game. They then threw themselves into the new game a bit late, as empire-building was suddenly passe and evil when they tried it in WWII.
"Silence" is coming out soon, you can delve into the history of Christianity in Japan then!
I would just like to say thanks for the movie recommendation, I've always been interested in the kirishitans in japan.
Very wise-suppressing christianity. Shame it wasn't more applied globally.
There's also an old samurai flick about Amakusa Shirō Tokisada, the leader of the Shimabara Rebellion from the 1960s.
Ah, the old "Jesuits are demons" line. Figured an apologist for the brutal persecution of Christians would come about. But woe betide you if you suggest Islam be suppressed
You mean Islam?
The Last Samurai is probably my absolute favorite movie of all time. I thoroughly enjoyed this video. Thank you!
16:55 "He is Samurai" and the look on his face. Always gives me the chills. I my opinion those 4 seconds have all the information you needs to understand what samurai means.
I would like to see History Buffs take on Schindler's List.
@Lord Gaylord Ondor yeah, it's sad :(
That'd have to be split in two parts
@@MASTEROFEVIL not to mention may have to be demonitize