The Last Samurai
Sat, Dec. 6th, 2003 01:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThe bad started before the movie did! We bought tickets to the 8:15 showing to find out that they had overbooked the theater and there were no seats left for us =(. Boooo. I didn't know they even did that. Sounds like airlines. The boy was more mad than me, as I was mostly kind of confused. But we saw the next one at 9:20, and jeez there was a giant line forming half an hour before the thing started! I didn't even know there was hype or buzz or whatnot.
The movie itself :
Good and bad. Not as bad as I thought it could have been, so mostly I'm pretty satisfied. There were two otaku sitting next to me and the boy who obviously did not have the same mindset and nitpicked all the historical details that I am now going to do ;). Hey, EAS major. I can't help it, it's my fun in life ^_^. I do wish I were still back in Princeton for this though, and in my Japanese film class, because I would have loved talking about this with Prof. Marran and Richard and Yu-Cheng and DJ.
The minor bad things: as the otaku mentioned, the ninja. Oh well. A sense of time displacement between Meiji Japan and Sengoku Jidai (the Warring States period) was kind of odd. Also, I was a little disappointed because I'm very fascinated with Meiji Japan but never managed to take a course right on it.... got myself studying modern Japan (post-war) and pre-modern (everything up to Tokugawa), and while each briefly went over the Meiji period, nothing went in depth. I think sometime I shall have to pick up Marius Jansen's The Making of Modern Japan. Anyway, I'm getting distracted. What I really wanted to see in this movie was a changing Japan, one caught between modernity and feudalism, trying desperately to change the entire course of the country into full industrialization in 25 years. I still think it's one of the most amazing transformations in history, and I wanted to see the excitement of the time (like turn of the century America), with the cities and the tensions. And while the movie was in part about that, it was much more sentimental about it than I would have liked.
Now to take the movie on its own terms (or to call the cheesecake a cheesecake and not a cat ^_~). It's a large shiny epic. Very large. Very shiny, as helped on by Tom Cruise. I can't help but feel it's one of those sanitized epics of history that are wonderful during Oscar time, and I'm kind of scared it will displace LotR. But to damn with faint praise, it missed most of the potholes that I thought it was going to stumble into. No sex between Cruise's character and the woman -- a fairly nice, subtle scene at the end when she dresses him in armor. And they didn't do that thing they did with The Last Emperor and have everyone speak English, no matter how weird that would have been. Surprisingly, a very large percent of the film was in subtitles. And they say Americans won't watch movies with subtitles! After I had decided to ignore historical stuff, I was pretty swept up by plot. Not that into Cruise's character, but the cinematography was gorgeous. I loved the setting/rising suns, and especially that one shot of the samurai riding through the mists, looking like ghosts from the past in their horned helmets. The battle scenes were brutal. I will not comment more because I didn't watch most of them -- I'm not good with the swords stabbing everything. I liked how I could figure out their tactics and how the battle was going (as opposed to Gladiator!) and how it still showed how bloody and horrible it was. And I really liked Katsumoto. I also really liked the scene in which Tom Cruise learns Japanese, because it reminded me of Japanese class. I liked the not so subtle tributes to Kurosawa and western movies (can one have a tribute to Kurosawa that is not in part a tribute to a western? I guess so, huh). The shot of the sword in the ground on the battlefield reminded me of Seven Samurai, the ugliness of the fighting of Seven Samurai and Ran, and the village particularly of Seven Samurai. I liked other small things like people walking around in Tokyo and Yokohama in a mix of Japanese and Western clothes (especially the guy in hakama and a bowler and a cane!).
The bigger things I disliked: I had a problem with the entire romanticization of Japan (that Japan does as well). The whole Buddhist/Zen attitude, starting with Katsumoto meditating on the mountain, to the happy village in the rice paddies. Algren (Cruise) and his observations of how dedicated and hard-working they were (show sword fighting and some guy doing something that looks slightly like a tea ceremony). The whole "mystic Asian" thing between Algren and Katsumoto, which was waaay too much like Karate Kid and Mr. Miyage to me. Plus, they speak in those abstract philosophies that are supposed to sound all deep and zen-like. That tends to be what annoys me about most movies/books on Japan and/or China. I was also sad but not too disappointed on how they ignored a lot of the context of the times... reminded me of an American version of Rurouni Kenshin, a popular Japanese manga/anime set in about the same time. There's the glorification of the samurai and the badness of Westernization that I think is a much more modern concern than a concern back then, since I remember that Japan went through all that for lots of reasons. While they weren't looking toward old values, they were looking to get rid of their very feudal system and bring about more class equality. The samurai at the time were generally bureaucrats, poor at that, instead of the virile warriors -- Meiji came after an unprecedented 200 so years of peace of the Tokugawa era. But I could be wrong. I was having fun surmising that Katsumoto was a samurai from the boondocks, and as such, more wild and old-fashioned samurai than the guys who turned mostly into fops back in Edo. The samurai here reminded me of the samurai in Kurosawa films from the Sengoku period of the 1300s, wild and untamed. I had a lot of fun thinking of it as a giant Japanese western movie (as in cowboys on the range).
I don't know. I guess it's not really fair to not quite like the movie because it wasn't what I wanted it to be. It was a rousing epic movie, although a bit cheesy, with the end dragging on too long, but the epicness was too obvious and not LotR grand enough. I realized in the movie, when in all the battle scenes I kept hearing Theoden at Helm's Deep crying, "Now for wrath. Now for ruin. And the red dawn!" or something like that. I think every epic battle movie is now going to have to compare to TT in my head. But I didn't want a rousing epic movie. Or in fact an overly PC movie about the massacre of Native Americans and the Badness of Westernization. Plus, the whole thing about westernization now reminds of the entire attitude of Japan post-war and the glorification of the past. I wanted to see the young Meiji emperor controlled by a group of advisors, not some evil Japanese businessman. I wanted to see the country torn between feudalism and modernism, the unsurety of the classes. I wanted to see the education reforms, the heady mix of the new and the old. And while I am as vulnerable as anyone to the sheer coolness of the idea of the samurai, there's also a part of my head that knows that having them cut off their hair and give up their swords wasn't a giant death knell, since at that time, hairstyle showed status and showed that they were the upper class and that only they were allowed to carry weapons previously. I guess it's kind of like the contrast between the glorified knights of the Middle Ages to the actuality, because that was pretty much what it was like. And I wanted to see that, to see the complicated politics that led to Japan's amazing emergence (and tragic, thanks to how it contributed to WWII) into modernity. Plus, despite the whole "westernization is bad" attitude, or maybe because of it, it's hard to forget that Japan embarked on this having seen China devastated by the Opium Wars and humiliated by various foreign powers and that they figured this was their only chance to survive. And they learned too well. I was going over old notes again and it turns out in 1876, when this movie was set, they were off attacking Korea in gunships. Yeah.
I guess in the end it's a bit like Gladiator to me, though I liked it ten times better than Gladiator, which I really hated. Got the shiny epic historic patina without really having to bow down to historical detail -- the Emperor fighting a gladiator? Rome reverting to a republic? Reminds me of what my Classics prof. at Princeton said in a class: "If anyone writes on the final that Rome turned back into a republic, they will be retroactively rejected from Princeton!" Hee.
Is it just me or is this year year of the giant epic movies? There's this. There's Troy, which I MUST see! I have had the Iliad in my head since I was about seven, and I'm not as bogged down by scholarly-type thoughts. Besides, the story of Troy has been told so often that it's kind of like a fairy tale or a legend -- each retelling is interesting and doesn't really have to be faithful. Like fanfiction on big screen. Then there's Return of the King. I watched the previews in the theater, on the small tvs, waiting for the next showing of Last Samurai, and damn it if I wasn't moved to tears. And I've seen that trailer several times! It's just so giant and so epic, in a way it could only be with the weight of two other movies behind it. Plus, I love the shots of Theoden, Eomer and Eowyn. So sad Theoden is going to die =(. I personally think it is getting more popular thanks to LotR and especially Helm's Deep. Nothing quite gives me chills like that scene with the uruk-hai all drumming their spears in the rain. Guh.
ETA: Apparently Troy's coming in the summer! Argh, more wait! Oh well... less movies to crowd in now. I'm out of the movie loop -- any indies really getting critical buzz right now? Seems like it's mostly these blockbuster type things that are getting Oscar buzz.
The movie itself :
Good and bad. Not as bad as I thought it could have been, so mostly I'm pretty satisfied. There were two otaku sitting next to me and the boy who obviously did not have the same mindset and nitpicked all the historical details that I am now going to do ;). Hey, EAS major. I can't help it, it's my fun in life ^_^. I do wish I were still back in Princeton for this though, and in my Japanese film class, because I would have loved talking about this with Prof. Marran and Richard and Yu-Cheng and DJ.
The minor bad things: as the otaku mentioned, the ninja. Oh well. A sense of time displacement between Meiji Japan and Sengoku Jidai (the Warring States period) was kind of odd. Also, I was a little disappointed because I'm very fascinated with Meiji Japan but never managed to take a course right on it.... got myself studying modern Japan (post-war) and pre-modern (everything up to Tokugawa), and while each briefly went over the Meiji period, nothing went in depth. I think sometime I shall have to pick up Marius Jansen's The Making of Modern Japan. Anyway, I'm getting distracted. What I really wanted to see in this movie was a changing Japan, one caught between modernity and feudalism, trying desperately to change the entire course of the country into full industrialization in 25 years. I still think it's one of the most amazing transformations in history, and I wanted to see the excitement of the time (like turn of the century America), with the cities and the tensions. And while the movie was in part about that, it was much more sentimental about it than I would have liked.
Now to take the movie on its own terms (or to call the cheesecake a cheesecake and not a cat ^_~). It's a large shiny epic. Very large. Very shiny, as helped on by Tom Cruise. I can't help but feel it's one of those sanitized epics of history that are wonderful during Oscar time, and I'm kind of scared it will displace LotR. But to damn with faint praise, it missed most of the potholes that I thought it was going to stumble into. No sex between Cruise's character and the woman -- a fairly nice, subtle scene at the end when she dresses him in armor. And they didn't do that thing they did with The Last Emperor and have everyone speak English, no matter how weird that would have been. Surprisingly, a very large percent of the film was in subtitles. And they say Americans won't watch movies with subtitles! After I had decided to ignore historical stuff, I was pretty swept up by plot. Not that into Cruise's character, but the cinematography was gorgeous. I loved the setting/rising suns, and especially that one shot of the samurai riding through the mists, looking like ghosts from the past in their horned helmets. The battle scenes were brutal. I will not comment more because I didn't watch most of them -- I'm not good with the swords stabbing everything. I liked how I could figure out their tactics and how the battle was going (as opposed to Gladiator!) and how it still showed how bloody and horrible it was. And I really liked Katsumoto. I also really liked the scene in which Tom Cruise learns Japanese, because it reminded me of Japanese class. I liked the not so subtle tributes to Kurosawa and western movies (can one have a tribute to Kurosawa that is not in part a tribute to a western? I guess so, huh). The shot of the sword in the ground on the battlefield reminded me of Seven Samurai, the ugliness of the fighting of Seven Samurai and Ran, and the village particularly of Seven Samurai. I liked other small things like people walking around in Tokyo and Yokohama in a mix of Japanese and Western clothes (especially the guy in hakama and a bowler and a cane!).
The bigger things I disliked: I had a problem with the entire romanticization of Japan (that Japan does as well). The whole Buddhist/Zen attitude, starting with Katsumoto meditating on the mountain, to the happy village in the rice paddies. Algren (Cruise) and his observations of how dedicated and hard-working they were (show sword fighting and some guy doing something that looks slightly like a tea ceremony). The whole "mystic Asian" thing between Algren and Katsumoto, which was waaay too much like Karate Kid and Mr. Miyage to me. Plus, they speak in those abstract philosophies that are supposed to sound all deep and zen-like. That tends to be what annoys me about most movies/books on Japan and/or China. I was also sad but not too disappointed on how they ignored a lot of the context of the times... reminded me of an American version of Rurouni Kenshin, a popular Japanese manga/anime set in about the same time. There's the glorification of the samurai and the badness of Westernization that I think is a much more modern concern than a concern back then, since I remember that Japan went through all that for lots of reasons. While they weren't looking toward old values, they were looking to get rid of their very feudal system and bring about more class equality. The samurai at the time were generally bureaucrats, poor at that, instead of the virile warriors -- Meiji came after an unprecedented 200 so years of peace of the Tokugawa era. But I could be wrong. I was having fun surmising that Katsumoto was a samurai from the boondocks, and as such, more wild and old-fashioned samurai than the guys who turned mostly into fops back in Edo. The samurai here reminded me of the samurai in Kurosawa films from the Sengoku period of the 1300s, wild and untamed. I had a lot of fun thinking of it as a giant Japanese western movie (as in cowboys on the range).
I don't know. I guess it's not really fair to not quite like the movie because it wasn't what I wanted it to be. It was a rousing epic movie, although a bit cheesy, with the end dragging on too long, but the epicness was too obvious and not LotR grand enough. I realized in the movie, when in all the battle scenes I kept hearing Theoden at Helm's Deep crying, "Now for wrath. Now for ruin. And the red dawn!" or something like that. I think every epic battle movie is now going to have to compare to TT in my head. But I didn't want a rousing epic movie. Or in fact an overly PC movie about the massacre of Native Americans and the Badness of Westernization. Plus, the whole thing about westernization now reminds of the entire attitude of Japan post-war and the glorification of the past. I wanted to see the young Meiji emperor controlled by a group of advisors, not some evil Japanese businessman. I wanted to see the country torn between feudalism and modernism, the unsurety of the classes. I wanted to see the education reforms, the heady mix of the new and the old. And while I am as vulnerable as anyone to the sheer coolness of the idea of the samurai, there's also a part of my head that knows that having them cut off their hair and give up their swords wasn't a giant death knell, since at that time, hairstyle showed status and showed that they were the upper class and that only they were allowed to carry weapons previously. I guess it's kind of like the contrast between the glorified knights of the Middle Ages to the actuality, because that was pretty much what it was like. And I wanted to see that, to see the complicated politics that led to Japan's amazing emergence (and tragic, thanks to how it contributed to WWII) into modernity. Plus, despite the whole "westernization is bad" attitude, or maybe because of it, it's hard to forget that Japan embarked on this having seen China devastated by the Opium Wars and humiliated by various foreign powers and that they figured this was their only chance to survive. And they learned too well. I was going over old notes again and it turns out in 1876, when this movie was set, they were off attacking Korea in gunships. Yeah.
I guess in the end it's a bit like Gladiator to me, though I liked it ten times better than Gladiator, which I really hated. Got the shiny epic historic patina without really having to bow down to historical detail -- the Emperor fighting a gladiator? Rome reverting to a republic? Reminds me of what my Classics prof. at Princeton said in a class: "If anyone writes on the final that Rome turned back into a republic, they will be retroactively rejected from Princeton!" Hee.
Is it just me or is this year year of the giant epic movies? There's this. There's Troy, which I MUST see! I have had the Iliad in my head since I was about seven, and I'm not as bogged down by scholarly-type thoughts. Besides, the story of Troy has been told so often that it's kind of like a fairy tale or a legend -- each retelling is interesting and doesn't really have to be faithful. Like fanfiction on big screen. Then there's Return of the King. I watched the previews in the theater, on the small tvs, waiting for the next showing of Last Samurai, and damn it if I wasn't moved to tears. And I've seen that trailer several times! It's just so giant and so epic, in a way it could only be with the weight of two other movies behind it. Plus, I love the shots of Theoden, Eomer and Eowyn. So sad Theoden is going to die =(. I personally think it is getting more popular thanks to LotR and especially Helm's Deep. Nothing quite gives me chills like that scene with the uruk-hai all drumming their spears in the rain. Guh.
ETA: Apparently Troy's coming in the summer! Argh, more wait! Oh well... less movies to crowd in now. I'm out of the movie loop -- any indies really getting critical buzz right now? Seems like it's mostly these blockbuster type things that are getting Oscar buzz.