Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai is a film released in the United States on December 5, 2003. It is set in the 1870s in Japan and stars:
- Tom Cruise as Captain Nathan Algren, an Indian Wars veteran
- Ken Watanabe as samurai Lord Katsumoto
- Masato Harada as industrialist and pro-reform politician Omura
- Shichinosuke Nakamura as Emperor Meiji
- Hiroyuki Sanada as Ujio, one of the most dedicated and vicious samurai
- Timothy Spall as Simon Graham, a British translator for Capt Algren and his non-Japanese speaking soldiers
- Seizo Fukumoto as the Silent Samurai
- Koyuki as Taka
- Billy Connolly
General information
The film's plot is very loosely based on the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigo Takamori, and also on the story of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the Boshin War. The roles of Britain and France are largely portrayed as US actions, and characters in the film and the real story are oversimplified. Although it is not a good source of historical information, the film does succeed in touching on some major issues for Japan at the time and is considered a very good example of the Hollywood Epic.
Algren, a disenfranchised army captain (once under the command of George Custer), travels to Japan to help the new Meiji government in training its first Western-style army. He leads the army into battle against Katsumoto's men, is routed and captured, and is imprisoned in Katsumoto's isolated village. While there, Algren begins to learn of the code of bushido and through this, he has an epiphany and becomes a samurai. The movie's climax occurs as a rebel cavalry charge is stopped by Gatling guns.
Although many of the film's cast members are Japanese, the production crew is entirely American, and most of the movie was filmed in New Zealand.
Unlike English, the Japanese language has no plural nouns. Many moviegoers incorrectly assumed the title refers to Tom Cruise's character, rather than to the group of samurai he interacted with.
See also
External links
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