'Last Samurai' - A Good Movie

FredL

NOTE FROM ADMIN: I've marked a few posts with "Potential Spoiler" notes. To easily read that bit of the post, you can highlight it (click and drag with your mouse over the text). Because I haven't seen the movie myself it would be difficult to accurately "censor" the posts, or be sure to get them in time, so as a reader please be advised that this thread may contain plot points, and if you are contributing to this thread, be sensitive to the fact that not everyone has seen the movie.

Enjoy the discussion

- Matt


Just got back from seeing "The Last Samurai" for the second time. Got to take my son and then my wife. I feel a little guilty for bringing up a movie on our Bonsai forum, but I have to say that this movie somehow really captured the same sentiment that brought me to Bonsai. I was very moved by it.

I s'pose I deserve a tongue lashing for my love of "Oriental Hocus-Pocus" or even the ultimate sanction of having my thread remmoved for being "off topic", but if it turns out I turn up a single kindred spirit with my plaintif message, it will be worth it!

Fred

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K.A. Rutledge

Hey Fred,

I saw the movie as well (twice). Really good flick. With most "samurai" movies, I am usually disgusted by the hokey or corny inaccuracies or cross cultural mistakes, but this one was excellent in its representation of the period and culture (to a point). Far better than the average and better than most.

HIGHLIGHT TO READ - WARNING - POTENTIAL PLOT SPOILER:
The story was the best part and the unapologetic way that it portrayed the doomed effort in the end was refreshing (no attempt to "Hollywood" things up to seem logical to Americans).

Great stuff.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
www.andyrutledge.com
zone 8, Texas

Kazuki

i agree, it was an awsome movie, but nothing beats the seven samurai by kurosawa!

treenut

Anything that gets the thumbs up from Mr Rutledge must be good, I'm off to see it now for sure!

K.A. Rutledge

Ugh! I'm sorry about the plot spoiler. I was not thinking when I wrote that. Thanks (Matt?) for amending my mistake. :-o

I can be a dweeb sometimes...

BTW, saw LOTR3 tonight (just got home - 4 am). Awesome.

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas

K.A. Rutledge

The one thing that I did notice that was an anachronism (and this is not really a plot spoiler) is that in one of the scenes a man training at unarmed combat with partners bows to his partners, but with his hands held up in front - in the form of a fist against an open hand. I almost fell out of my seat laughing. This type of bow/salute was invented by American martial artists around the 1970's. Oh well, Hollywood is permitted a few mistakes now and then.

;-)

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas

David Chauvin

Last month, I saw the film "Little Buddha" on the Independent Film Channel. The movie tells the story of an American boy who may or may not be the reincarnation of a Buddhist holy man, interspersed with the story of Siddhartha. The movie is ok, but at the end of the film is a scene depicting the enlightenment of Siddhartha under a huge banyan tree that is unbelievable. The tree is incredible and is lovingly shot. Slow pans show the tree from all angles. Closeups, full views, looking up into the branches, radiating surface roots, all shot in beautiful warm light. I highly recommend this movie to all tree lovers.

Regards,

David

__________________
"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

rockm

It's puzzling that westerners glorify what were essentially Japan's "dark ages." The fuedalistic society that is held up as superior to the west in the movie was a society that subjugated the vast majority of the lower classes, so a few could live the high life. The samurai were enforcers of that brutal class code and, although they lead a life by a code, it was a code that largely excluded those below them.

For instance, ownership of some material things by those not in the upper classes--like bonsai--was punishable by death during those times.

Sorry, although the movie was gorgeously done, it overlooked brutal fact, but I guess that's Hollywood.

FredL

I don't think that viewing Japanese feudal society or the Samurai class in a sympathetic light is tantamount to glorifying them. My son and I have had several interesting discussions since we saw the movie on the differences between a tribal mentality and a commercial, perhaps more modern one as well as the effect of the modern world on tribal cultures and peoples. I haven't felt that the movie did more than help balance the discussion with respect to the positives of more ancient ways of life. The movie has started me, myself, thinking about my own family history in a rather different way. There are aspects of the Samurai Code that are noble and admirable and I'm happy that the movie brought them out.

I have read a number of people's thoughts on the history of bonsai in Japan and the relationship of Bonsai to the growth of a commercial economy in Japan and to older traditions. What has always struck me is that the way people view history, whether of Bonsai or any other facit thereof, seems to be more of a function of their view of modern life than any real, objective view of the past. This movie helped me to understand that my own family history makes me much more sympathetic to the idea that the development of Bonsai in Japan represented a fruition of ancient, primarily spiritual and religious traditions rather than more modern, primarily commercial motivations that I've heard others ascribe its development to.

I found the movie very thought-provoking and I was not put off at all by its sympathetic treatment of the Samurai.

Best regards, Fred