The last Samurai, directed by Edward Zwick, was released in December of 2003. It tells the story of an American Army officer who is hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the imperial army and put down a pending samurai rebellion. The story is fictional which is to say it is very loosely connected to real events. However, according to Mr. Zwick it was his intention to give the audience a feel for the tug-of-war between controlling interests in japan during this time period. It’s also important to mention that the Mr. Zwick went to great lengths to hire a cast and crew from Japan that would further the goal of creating a movie that looked and felt authentic to that time period. He relied heavily on those individuals to educate the crew as well …show more content…
The Meiji had taken control of the country and the focus of the time was modernization. The military was not a capable one and technology was lacking. The emperor began looking to western powers like the United States and Great Britain as a model for growth. In the years leading up to these drastic changes the Emperor had ruled via advice from a group of men that had helped put him back in power (Columbia University, 2009). These military leaders were samurai and the character Katsumoto is based on them. The movie doesn’t go too in-depth but as time goes on and the emperor began to make more of the decisions without advice from the samurai. They were given a back seat and eventually relieved of they’re elite status, their swords were effectively taken from them and they became no different from the rest of Japan. Some cut off their topknots and gave up the title of samurai while others did not (Columbia University, 2009). It was in 1877 when the holdout samurai fought and lost with the nations newly formed army in the Satsuma rebellion. This is no doubt the piece of Japanese history that inspired The Last …show more content…
This was discussed by the film team when trying to decide how to equip the warriors in the movie. Zwick was of the opinion that this would be another good way to help the audience understand that there were two very different ideas fighting for the future of Japan. He thought that the samurai in the movie should represent the old ways of Japan and that would help focus the audience to the struggle between old and new. It also allows Zwick to show the Americans attitude towards the Japanese during the time period. On more than one occasion, the samurai were referred to as savages with bows and
In document B written by Catharina Blomberg, it says, “Loyalty toward the feudal lord in Japan was hereditary.” If becoming a samurai was hereditary, then some samurai weren’t chosen to be a samurai because of their abilities, but because they were the son of a samurai. That means that not all samurai are the best fighters. It also says in document E, written by the DBQ project, “To dishonour knighthood was the greatest disgrace.” Part of the code is to always obey your king, so a knight would want to fight harder and not back out.
In the ancient Japanese culture, one great aspect was on how they emphasized on the intrinsic themes of loyalty and honor. They had fierce warriors known as samurai’s. A samurai was a traditional warrior who would protect and be loyal to their masters no matter what. They were known to be skilled soldiers, benevolent men, self-sacrifice, sense of shame, along with other major characteristics that embodied them as a samurai. While this class of warrior no longer exist today, the remembrance of a samurai is present in the minds of the characters in the novel, The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. Tsukiyama does a fascinating piece of work by really elaborating and describing the great attributes that Matsu possess of a true samurai. In the
Do you know someone in the military? A loved one, a friend, do you know what they go through? I may not, but I do know about the harsh training and war that occurred for the Samurais and Knights. In Europe and Japan the empires were falling and Clans were taking over Japan. The government came up with an idea to create feudalism. There was an agreement in both Europe and Japan that exchanged land for protection. The similarities between Samurai and Knights were greater than the differences. This can be shown by looking at the three most similar areas: social position, training and armor, and life, honor, and death. The Samurai and Knights has their differences, but were the similarities greater than those differences.
As can be seen above, European knights and Japanese Samurais shared lots of differences including training, armor, weaponry, true values and rules. This is because they both came from different countries, and have different lifestyles, cultures, and religions, which influenced them to develop
The Last Samurai is a film that is often used to teach history in classes. The last Samurai represents the end of an era. The film does a good job of teaching many parts of Japanese History. This movie teaches us about the way of the Samurai, and their beliefs and traditions. The movie also expresses what life was like during the Meiji Restoration. You can see in the movie that technology started to advance, gradually decreasing the amount of Samurais. The Satsuma Rebellion, which lasted for 6 months, was shown in the movie as a battle between tradition and modernisation. Even though this film is not entirely accurate, it has some key historical events which are good for learning about this historic period.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Chinese and Japanese faced much internal conflict, but while China faced a combination of economic setbacks and political weakness, the Japanese were riddled with wars along their countryside. First, the Chinese emperor was too weak in comparison to his bureaucracy, which ended up making most of the decisions for the last Ming dynasty emperor. This was due to the emperor’s realization that having a title as Son of Heaven did not mean he had all the power of the empire. Instead he lived a laid back life where the bureaucrats vied for power and wealth amongst themselves and he merely managed them. Like the Chinese, the Japanese also saw elites battling it out for power, but this time on the battlefield with armies of samurai. These battles put Japan in a period much like the Warring States period in early Chinese history, where families fought and fought for power almost endlessly. The political weakness in China contributed to its economic failure as well. With no force to manage to seas, pirates were free to raid trade ships and villages along the coast line, weakening the Chinese economy that relied on a transport system to supply the country. These two major forces led to China’s fragmentation and eventual takeover by the Manchu. In contrast, the battles happening in Japan were not harmful to the economy as much as they were in China. This is due to the fact that the Japanese daimyos were independent...
The imperial power of the Japanese empire was ruled by the warrior class. By the end of
Masatsusu, Mitsuyuki. 1982. The Modern Samurai Society: Duty and Dependence in Contemporary Japan. New York: AMACOM.
... in body and mind, to governing of the Emperors, to the study of the martial arts. Their code of honor and loyalty are traditions that all Japanese respect and try to live up to even today. The self sacrifice of ones own life for a common cause was even seen in World War II when Japanese pilots deliberately crashed their planes into United States ships anchored at Pearl Harbor. This was a devastating attack and can show the horror caused by revenge and their belief in sacrifice and honor. They were even called kamikaze pilots after the famous samurai battle of long ago. The influence of the samurai continues to be seen in Japan today in a positive way with the stories and legends of heroic samurai and the bushido as their guide.
The samurai had existed in modern time for a while before changing. In 1853 the United States came to Japan seeking trade and commercial relationships. It was decided that Japan was ready to give up its old ways and the era of feudal Japan ended in 1868 and the samurai along with it.
Japan lasted from 1185-1603. During that time Japan had emperors, shoguns, daimyos, samurai, and peasants who were all apart of a social class, and all together it was called the Samurai Society. The emperor was just a figurehead for the shogun. The shogun was a powerful military leader that ruled in the emperor’s name. Daimyo were powerful landlords. The daimyo often led armies of samurai. These samurai were trained professional warriors who served daimyo and shoguns. The samurai had to follow a certain code of rules for samurai called Bushido. One of their rules included to always have self-discipline to become a good samurai. The samurai warriors wore light armor, helmets (usually shaped like an animal), and had two swords around their waist. Their armor had a lot of detail and color to it, like their unique helmets. After the samurai comes the peasants, which included farmers and fishermen. They usually always work, then pay takes to the shogun. They usually gave the shogun what they earned from working like food or crops. What made their jobs a bit difficult was their topography. Japan’s topography included many mountains, undersea volcanoes, and barely any flat land to farm on. The Japanese didn’t only work they also practiced their religion. For example, they practiced Confucianism, Buddhism (...
Though it seems that it was the Western influence that set off this revolutionary change, a more scrutinizing look into Japanese society at the time reveals that Japan was in fact on the brink of supplanting the fixed, hierarchical Tokugawa order for one that was better suited for its fast evolving, capitalistic society. As historian David Lu states, “Our people began to discover [modern civilization’s] utility and gradually and yet actively moved towards its acceptance. However, there was an old fashioned and bloated government that stood in the way of progress.” (Lu, 351). Therefore in a way we can view the intrusion of Western powers in Japan on that infamous July day in 1853 as an event that occurred during a time when Japan was ready for a world renewal, and not a direct and complete cause of modernization of Japan; in fact it was Japan’s revaluation of modernization and what it meant to be Japanese amidst strong western influences that eventually ...
The Last Samurai depicted the Japanese monarchy in the light that they had attempted to destroy their system of feudalism, which they had in place for thousands of years, with that of monstrosity. The movie differentiates between warriors who fought for honor and loyalty, battling against red, white and blue savages who only fought for greed and power. This is the lasting label/influence that America has to offer the world; monsters who destroyed anything in their paths at the cost of receiving false success. Americans have done their fair share of unethical acts to get to their position of power in the world. By influencing and sharing their methods with Japan, they extended their reach of corrupt innovation. With this help, Japan did to its own people what Americans had done to the people of their homeland.
Spirited Away is a Japanese anime movie by Hayao Miyazaki and produced under Studio Ghibli. The film was first released in July of 2001, and became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing over $274 million dollars worldwide. The film was so successful, it even overtook Titanic (top grossing film at the time) and because the highest-grossing film in Japanese history with a total of $229,607,878. (Johnson, G. A.)
...e respect, honor, and loyalty make this difference for me, but there is something to be said about the comparison. I find that the knights are very efficient, great warriors, and are very similar to samurai’s in a lot of ways. They both wear armor, they both train from a young age, and both are taught about honor, loyalty, and respect; but samurais are taught more effectively in their training, and the Japanese concepts were better. So to answer the essential question of this essay, I would say that there is certainly a large amount of similarities between the two warriors, but if you would consider the samurai’s skills that are better, or enhanced; to be differences, than I would have to conclude with no. The ‘differences’, are far too great in my opinion to say that the similarities are so great that they are almost the same, because they are very different indeed.