Video: The last samurai: the amazing story behind the famous film
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The Last Samurai is a pretty good if underrated movie starring Tom Cruise. Like many other Hollywood epics, it is not the exact truth, although it is presented in an interesting and spectacular way. From the review, you can find out how much the Hollywood scriptwriters overdid it, creating the image of a fearless European who fought with the samurai.
For many centuries, the Japanese authorities did not allow foreigners into the country, because European traders brought with them weapons and goods from all over the world. Fearing the collapse of traditional values, the feudal government, the Tokugawa Shogunate, expelled all foreigners from the islands, leaving only the small port of Nagasaki for trade.
It took two hundred years before the Japanese began to think about their lag behind the rest of the world. In 1853, a large American fleet arrived to the Japanese islands, consisting of modern steam ships at that time. Under the threat of cannons, the Americans forced Japan to sign a treaty of peace, friendship and trade. Unsurprisingly, common sense prevailed when the "medieval" Japanese saw the latest warships in their bays. They opened up trade, encouraging cultural exchange to catch up with the modern era.
The events of the film "The Last Samurai" cover an interesting time and place: Japan at the end of the 19th century, the era of the Meiji Restoration. It was a difficult period in the country's history, when feudal Japan became a modern monarchy modeled on the great European powers, a political, social and industrial revolution took place. Modernization was carried out in all areas, in particular, the evolution of military affairs and the decrease in the political and military role of the samurai - medieval knights fighting with swords and bows. Now Japan bought modern firearms from the West. And to train the imperial army, officers were hired from the most "experienced" warring countries in the world - France, Great Britain, and the United States.
Hollywood simplified the film's script to portray the samurai as good and simple people, and Japan's modernization as bad and depressing. In fact, during the Meiji Restoration, there was a redistribution of social classes. The new government abolished the samurai caste, who ruled with a brutal hand and were mainly engaged in agriculture. This was the reason for the mutiny.
In the film "The Last Samurai", several uprisings, which, according to history, lasted for many years, are mixed into one whole. The fictional leader Katsumoto was based on the personality of the influential Saigo Takamori, the leader of the latest riot.
The samurai in the film's battle scenes are depicted from an entertainment point of view. The very first battle shows how they skillfully wield swords and bows to defeat the armed but inexperienced army of Emperor Meiji.
The story, however, displays a very different side. While one of the first riots took place without modern weapons, the rest of the uprisings used modern means of warfare.
The Takamori rebels used rifles and often wore Western-style uniforms, with only a few using traditional samurai armor. The rebels had more than 60 artillery pieces, and they actively used them.
The imperial army really won the last battle at Shiroyama, as in the film, because of the superior number (about 30 thousand soldiers against 300-400 samurai). The last samurai suicide attack was as symbolic as it is presented in the film.
Although Captain Olgren appears to be a fictional, alien character, he nevertheless has a real historical prototype with strikingly similar attitudes and actions.
The character, played by Tom Cruise, was inspired by the Frenchman Jules Brunet. In 1867 he was assigned to train Japanese soldiers in the use of artillery. With the outbreak of the samurai rebellion, he could return to France, but remained in this civil war and fought on the losing side for the Shogunate. He fought in the glorious and epic final battle of Hakodate. The parallels between Brunet and Olgren show that the story of the former definitely had a big impact on the film.
The Last Samurai combines over ten years of real history into a short story, while changing the French hero to the American one. Also, the quantitative aspect ratio has been significantly changed: the new governments are shown as "evil and oppressive." In fact, it gave the Japanese freedom for the first time in their history.
And it is not for nothing that they say that "the East is a delicate matter." May sound amazing 10 little-known facts about samurai that are silent in literature and cinema.
Recommended:
Behind the scenes of the film "Unfinished Story": Why Elina Bystritskaya and Sergei Bondarchuk pretended not to know each other
2 years ago, on April 26, 2019, the famous actress, People's Artist of the USSR Elina Bystritskaya passed away. There are not so many works in her filmography, but among them there were enough roles, thanks to which her name forever entered the history of Russian cinema. Bystritskaya's all-Union fame was brought by the role of Aksinya in "Quiet Don", but few know that the actress received it largely due to the fact that two years earlier she brilliantly played her first leading role in the film "Unfinished
Behind the Scenes of The Ghost: How the Most Romantic Cult Movie Story of the Early 1990s Came to Be
30 years ago, on July 13, 1990, the premiere of the film "Ghost" ("Ghost") took place, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. This film was an incredible success not only in the American, but also in the world box office, and was recognized as one of the best melodramas of the late twentieth century. Why Bruce Willis refused to star in "The Phantom" with his wife, and who was Patrick Swayze thinking about when he kissed Demi Moore - further in the review
"Immoral" story of Kupchenko and Zbruev: Behind the scenes of the film "A lonely woman wants to meet"
On March 31, the famous theater and film actor, People's Artist of the RSFSR Alexander Zbruev will be 83 years old. He played about 80 roles in films, but most are familiar from the movie "Big Change". Much less often TV channels now show the melodrama "A lonely woman wants to get to know each other." 35 years have passed since filming, and in the era of social networks and dating sites, no one seems to be an extraordinary situation when a woman herself takes the initiative in finding a second half. And in the mid-1980s
Andrey Mironov's last film: What's left behind the scenes of the film "The Man from Boulevard des Capucines"
30 years ago, on August 16, 1987, Andrei Mironov, one of the most popular actors in Soviet cinema, passed away. Two months before that, Alla Surikova's film "The Man from the Boulevard of Capuchins" was released, which became the last film work of Andrei Mironov. On the set, there were a lot of curiosities that most viewers did not even know about
Lyubov Orlova and Grigory Alexandrov in and behind the scenes: What was hidden behind the facade of an ideal marriage
January 23 marks the 116th anniversary of the birth of the famous Soviet film director, screenwriter, actor, People's Artist of the USSR Grigory Alexandrov. His films "Funny Guys", "Circus", "Volga-Volga", "Spring" became classics of Soviet cinema, thanks to him the star of Lyubov Orlova, who was his wife and muse all his life, lit up. They were called the perfect couple, although was it really so?