The Last Samurai: Hollywood or History?

[hplaserjet6p]

Fact. Saigo Takamori vs. Emperor Meiji in the Boshin War. End of the Tokugawa Shougnate. Meiji won and thus the imperial forces of Japan, or Nihon-Koku as it is called in Japanese eliminated all the remaining samurai (Saigo was not a samurai, he was their leader, samurai meens one who serves). The evidence suggests, however, that it was more dramatic in this than it was in real life. Also, when the people are commiting suicide by cutting themselves open, that is called Harakiri, more formally and commonly known as Seppeku. Seppeku translates from Japanese to English as "Ritual Suicide". Harakiri literally meens "Belly Cutting".

Saigo was on the emperor side in the Boshin War .
Seppuku literally means "Cut Belly"

 

[pipokun]

Castration of horses had not been conducted till Meiji, so actually in the Russo–Japanese War, Akiyama Yoshifuru, the father of the modern Japanese cavalry, made his great efforts to produce good horses.

The horses in the movie are so tamed.

You can see the traditional horse-back archery, Yabusame, like Takeda-school. I heard the modern horses are faster, so it is harder for them to shoot an arrow properly.

 

[Pepe]

I only have one question - was the scenery believable? Did it really look like the Japanese countryside? This question is posed to those that have actually been out and about in the Japanese countryside, not on what one believes it would look like.

 

[pipokun]

was the scenery believable?

It was really nice.
But many samurai lived in the town near their castles then, not in the farmlands. So I felt a bit different in the scenery.
It is easy to build traditional buildiings, but it is rather difficult to find the battlefied in Japan. A samurai costume movie went to Canada to shoot a scene.

My favorite scene is a small festival with locals, though the battle with ninja is a joke. There still remains lots of people living to join their festival.

 

[Wantalk]

Firstly, not a great fan of Tom cruise, but I did like this movie alot. Even with all the historical mistakes, it is a good adventure movie.

Two things though, the movie was shot in NZ, that's why the plants in the forest are wrong. (The tree ferns as mentioned earlier)

The other, and to me the most glaring, the Americans did not go to Japan to train the new Meji army. It was mostly done by the French and the Bristish.

 

[Calchas]

The movie was a fun one, but all Hollywood movies bend the truth.
For example there is a tunnel used in many movies based in New York. Problem is the tunnel is in Canada.

 

[SushiShin]

okay generally conclusion is the movie was good even because its Hollywood and its historical incorrect, thank you all for your support and i hope we all learned something from this movie.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I kinda like The Last Samurai in some ways, but some of the innacuracys really spoilt it for me, like how they showed this big conflict going on with the samurai using traditional weapons fighting the meiji solidiers with modern guns and how the samurai were really against the use of guns etc- as far as i am aware, in actual reality, samurai in japan had been using guns for hundreds of years already and had nothing against the use of them.

 

[SushiShin]

Hollywood vs History it will always be a discussion, as to me, i say The Last Samurai is great inspiring movie and i'd really like the movie. Koyuki