The Last Samurai

Sword of Vengeance I

 but also, as Sergio Leone had done in Fistful of Dollars, began looking for style points as well. The most

Master Gunfighter

Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982) uses period and mythic figures to create a traditional, martial arts story. But the similarities to certain samurai films – the epic structure, the chanting narrator, the sword-play, the supernatural interventions, even the insistent drum beating on the music rack – are all merely borrowed from Kurosawa of 25 years prior. A better example of the samurai ethos, at least, can be found in Walter Hill's Hard Times (1975). In the context of the Depression-era South, Charles Bronson portrays a street fighter named Chaney with the same understated intensity as Mifune. Hill's plans to make “The Last Gun”, a Western whose man character was named “Ronin”, fell through in the late 1970s, so despite more obvious allusions to chambara in other films – The Warriors (1979) and the Yojimbo remake, Last Man Standing (1996) – it is Bronson's portrayal that resonates most powerfully with antecedents in the samurai genre.

As actor and director, Clint Eastwood has also repeatedly attempted to recreate that ethos. His portrayal of Leone's gunfighter, known as the “Man with No Name” (despite the fact that had a name in the first two pictures) evolved significantly in Eastwood's later work. In just his second film as director, High Plains Drifter (1972), Eastwood portrayed the mysterious hired gun known only as the Stranger, whose arrogant disdain and sexual rapacity types him as both samurai and devil, a Kyoshiro Nemuri on horseback. Four years later, the merciless but fair-minded title character in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) reaffirmed Eastwood's character roots in the outlaws of chambara, which culminate in his portrayal of the aged gunfighter in The Unforgiven (1992). Eastwood even permitted moments of outright parody in Pale Rider (1985) where his Sanjuro-esque Preacher has a bokken-style combat using axe handles.

Much has also been made of the relationship of the George Lucas Star Wars trilogy to samurai film and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress in particular. Certainly Lucas' Jedi warriors follow a bushido-like code and have the ability to wield light sabers like a daitos to vanquish dozens of assailants. Darth Vader lacks only a fylfot on his cape to type him as helmeted variant of Nemuri or the evil swordsmen of the Daibosatsu Toge adaptations. Still, the best examples can be found in the earth-bound science fictions of the Australian production Mad Max (1979) and its first two sequels, The Road Warrior (1981) and Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Both contain overt allusions to chambara from character names and hairstyles to asides by a police dispatcher. More substantively than Mad Max, The Road Warrior borrows heavily from the situations of Seven Samurai and Yojimbo. It even uses an antiquated optical device, the wipe (as does Lucas in Star Wars), also a Kurosawa favourite, for transitions. Ultimately, however, what distinguishes The Road Warrior from Conan and Luke Skywalker are the attitudes of the title characters. Mere allusions or stylistic homages to the samurai film have as much dramatic impact as a group of men playing mah-jongg (which is also a reference in The Road Warrior). When Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky enters the narrative, he does so like Mifune in Yojimbo, like a stray dog. It is that attitude which types him, although a figure in a science fiction narrative, as a lineal descendant of the ronin Sanjuro, and ironically one of the few to grace the screen in recent years. Whether that impact will carry over into the third sequel in 2004 remains to be seen.

The most recent foray into the “samurai homage” sub-genre is Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003), which in some ways outdoes Tom Laughlin. As a noir samurai film, Kill Bill is burdened by Tarantino's usual fractured narrative and kitchen-sink approach, a grab-bag from The Killing to the Sword of Vengeance series with a tip of the hat to Vicente Aranda's La Novia Ensangrentada (1972), a whole different genre, thrown in. The parody elements – from the pre-title fake “Shaw Scope” logo and “Feature Presentation Banner”, scratched up as if purloined from the projection booth of some drive-in, to the extended anime sequence that fills in the back story of Oren – are purposefully over the top. The gun in the box of “Kaboom” cereal is about as deft as this movie gets, for Tarantino appears to be reaching for the American-take-on-the-samurai analogy of Last House on the Left (1972), Wes Craven's modern-day, blood-and-guts variant on Bergman's Virgin Spring (1960). The problem is that, while the exploration of a character's revenge for the death of a child, has dramatic resonance from Sweden to Japan, the chivalric code that requires and controls vengeance looks different from a 21st century perspective. Moreover, as far as disjunctive style and narrative is concerned, Japanese filmmakers have already thoroughly deconstructed the genre on their own, directly, through the ninkyo eiga, and in all manner of commercials and music videos. The use of Ennio Morricone themes and other allusions on the soundtrack notwithstanding, the saga of “The Bride with No Name” – whatever her name is, in case the audience should fail to notice, is “bleeped” out in the first sequence – is as far from Leone as it is from Gosha; and the pre-existence of Kill Bill does not create an effective link to a series figure, to Nemuri or Zato Ichi or even Crimson Bat Oichi. Any audience understands from genre expectation, if not from the existence of Volume 2, that the Bride who would not die in the flashback cannot die in the extended combat at the end. Possessing the same preternatural sword skills as countless samurai figures, the

Kill Bill: Volume 1

While the period martial arts films of Hong Kong and mainland China share many of the attributes of the samurai film, particularly the ninja sub-genre, the operatic complications and physical magic of the swordplay movies – as evident in the recent crossover success Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) – overwhelm any version of giri-ninjo conflict which its characters might confront. A contemporary action film like Kiss of the Dragon (2001) is actually generically more proximate to chambara. Although seeking to clear himself of criminal charges, the protagonist's attack on the headquarters of a crooked police detective self-righteously defies all odds in order to rescue a child. The bare-handed combat after he stumbles into a roomful of Parisian cops in white karate uniforms is closer in staging and tone to such defiant figures as Sanjuro or Itto Ogami than any scene in Kill Bill.

There are certainly antecedents to the recently released The Last Samurai. Besides Okamoto's East Meets West and Red Sun, there is Bushido Blade (1979) where sailors from Perry's black ships and a shogunate retainer (portrayed by Mifune) search for a stolen sword intended as a gift for Townsend Harris. Journey of Honor (Shogun Mayeda, 1991) depicts events prior to the battle of Sekigahara and a trip to Spain by the son of Ieyasu Tokugawa to obtain muskets for his father's faction. Guns are also at the crux of The Last Samurai. While somewhat at variance with the Kojiki (2), the narration which opens The Last Samurai tells of how Japan was formed when the gods tempered a sword in the sea and the drops which fell from it created the island nation. After this mythic invocation, the scene shifts to 1876 San Francisco, where the former cavalry Captain Nathan Algren gives a drunken demonstration of his proficiency with a Winchester. His back-story as a “hero” is parcelled out over several conversations about Custer and the 7th Cavalry and physically intrudes into the narrative in the form of flashbacks to a massacre at an Indian camp. After he is hired to go to Japan with a former Colonel and a single non-com to train the Imperial army, the plot that unfolds might well have been pitched as Dances with Wolves meets Ran with a bit of Star Wars and They Died with their Boots On thrown in.

The antagonist of the Emperor is a former minister, a reactionary Samurai named Katsumoto who disdains Western arms. The real “Katsumoto”, Saigo Takamori, who lead the Satsuma Rebellion in 1876-77 and was a minor character in Kenji Misumi's The Last Samurai, may have been more of a neo-imperialist than a bujutsu purist (3). When untrained troops are, despite Algren's protest, sent out against him they turn and run. In the slaughter, many are killed and a wounded Algren is taken captive. While Taka, Katsumoto's sister and widow of a samurai killed by Algren, tends the captive's wound, there are more flashbacks to Indian camp killings as his recuperation is compounded by the delirium tremens of alcoholic withdrawal. While Algren screams for saké, his journal is being read by Katsumoto. The winter spent in Katsumoto's mountain village is the narrative core of The Last Samurai. With scenes and characters all but transposed whole from Dances with Wolves, new journal entries provide a voiceover narration: Algren acquiesces to requests for conversation by Katsumoto (who has heard of Custer and the Indian wars); Algren picks up Japanese during meals with Taka and her sons; Algren is chaperoned by an older samurai whom he calls “Bob”; and Algren gets some harsh bokken lessons from Ujio, Katsumoto's angry lieutenant. Certainly when the voiceover remarks about being taken in “as if I were a stray dog”, there are some telling allusions to the genre traditions of chambara but much of the process of “going native” is generic. Although the circumstances which bring him to the village are clearly different, as with Kevin Costner's portrayal of Lt. Dunbar amongst the Sioux, Tom Cruise's Algren is won over by the noble savagery and sense of tribal community in the samurai enclave. Over the course of several months, Algren's skill with the bokken also grows prodigiously. With Taka's sons acting as his mushin-no-shin coaches by calling out “no mind”, Algren visualises a series of moves, a bit like Ichi in Zato Ichi in Desperation, and remarkably achieves a draw in a practice duel with Ujio.

While the village enjoys a puppet play, as with the sneak attack by the rival Pawnee in Dances with Wolves, a squad of ninja assassins strike; and Algren joins the defense. In an extended sequence of classic chambara Algren first protects Taka and her family then fights side-by-side with Katsumoto until the ninja are defeated. At this point, the genre indicators – if not the movie publicity – are clear: there is no turning back for Algren from the path to full investiture as a samurai. Returned to Tokyo when Katsumoto agrees to discuss resuming his position as government minister, Algren is offered direction of the Imperial forces by Minister Omura, who hired him in San Francisco. Before refusing Omura, Algren understates Katsumoto's threat: “He's a tribal leader. I've know many of them”. As he packs to leave, Algren learns of Katsumoto's arrest and realises he cannot abandon him. When confronted by Omura's sinister aid and three henchmen, Algren chooses not to draw his pistols but still kills them all in a frenzied display of niten-ryu or two-sword technique using blades snatched from the hands of his assailants. After Algren mentally replays the combat in a slow-motion, monochromatic, “no minded” flashback, Omura's man rises up to say the day of samurai is over and be beheaded.

While the use of genre expectation can be effective dramatic shorthand, the thumbnails that act as mile markers on Algren's path are somewhat disjointed. When Algren talks to Katsumoto about the Spartans at Themopylae, the conversation is more about myth-making

The Last Samurai

Who, in fact, is to be perceived as the last samurai of the title? Clearly Katsumoto qualifies, whether it's striding into the council of ministers with two swords in his sash in defiance of the 1876 law or riding into battle to embrace “a good death”. But Katsumoto's persistent vision, the primordial scene of a white tiger fighting off a slew of warriors which comes to him in a Zen trance during an early sequence, also dies with him. Part of the new myth constructed by the filmmakers of this Last Samurai is in the link which Katusmoto saw when Algren fought against his warriors at their first encounter and the banner of the tiger attached to the broken lance with which Algren flailed. The transference of that vision, as Algren helps the defeated Katsumoto perform an impromptu seppuku on the field of battle, defines the real last samurai. In terms of narrative, Algren is as unlikely a surviror as Dunbar was at the beginning of Dances with Wolves. In terms of genre and myth, the expectations and impact are much the same. While the narration gives the audience alternate possibilities of Algren's fate, the images are of him returning to the village. As last man stranding, Algren becomes the unlikely, very Western repository of the samurai spirit embodied by Katsumoto and his men.

Endnotes:

1. Suburbs of Kyoto where the Boshin War began in January 1868 when shogunate and shinsengumi fighters lost to a smaller ishin shishi force equipped with more firearms and cannon.
   
   
2. In the actual creation myth two divine beings, the male Izanagi and the female Izanami, stand on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, and Izanagi thrusts through the viscous waters with the Ama-no-Nuboko, a jeweled spear. When he draws it back the drops that fall from the tip coagulate into the island of Onokoro. The couple settle on the island and ultimately Izanami gives birth to the rest of the islands and sundry gods of the sea and wind. In one variant, all the islands of Japan are formed from the drops that fall from the Ama-no-Nuboko.
   
   
3. Takamori Saigo was one of the ishin shishi from Satsuma who helped bring about the bakumatsu. After leading the Imperial forces during most of the Boshin War, he was appointed minister of the Army in the first cabinets of Prince Mutsuhito/Emperor Meiji and acted as head of the Imperial Guard. Rebuffed in 1873 over his plan to invade Korea, Saigo resigned and returned to Satsuma where he founded a private academy. When some of his followers attacked a government arsenal, he was forced into open rebellion. In the actual climactic battle of Tabura-zaka hill, which ended the Satsuma Rebellion of 1876-77, Saigo was indeed wounded and did commit suicide with his own sword. While Katsumoto's force is depicted as a small band of mountain samurai armed only with swords, lances, bows and arrows, and a cavalry unit, Saigo's rebel army, which numbered 10,000 men, wore uniforms not samurai armor, carried muzzle-loading rifles, had no cavalry, but did field a couple of artillery pieces. They faced a better equipped force more than twice their size in a battle that left over 7,000 dead. After death, Takamori was pardoned by the Emperor, valorised as an example of the warrior ideal, and a statue (ironically in Western garb) was erected in his honour in Satsuma. “Ujio” would appear to be based on Hanjiro Nakamoto, a key character in Kenji Misumi's The Last Samurai, who died in the battle. “Omura” is actually Okubo Toshimitsu, a wealthy Satsuma samurai who worked with Takamori during the Bakumatsu but opposed the war with Korea. He was assassinated in 1878 by six Satsuma clansmen seeking revenge for his “betrayal” of Saigo.
   
   

bakumatsu
The fall of a military regime, used to designate the restoration of power to the Meiji dynasty in 1867.

bokkenor bo-ken
A wooden sword.

budo
“The martial path”; the martial arts, methods of fighting with and without arms in which the samurai was rigorously instructed.

bujutsu
“The martial art”; synonymous with budo. The alternate spelling “jitsu” is also used, sometimes more generally, as in jujitsu.

bushido
“The way of the warrior”, an unwritten ethical code to be followed by all samurai.

bushi
A warrior; bu: “martial”; shi: “knight”.

chambara
A realistically staged display of sword fighting in a Jidai-geki or period drama; in motion pictures, a generic designation for a samurai film.

daimyo
A provincial lord who ruled a hanor province in the manner of a European duke.

daito
Literally “long saber”, a sword with a blade length of at least two and a half feet (measured in shaku – see below) but possibly over three feet, traditionally associated with the samurai, who was the only person privileged to carry it. Modern daitoshave 40-inch blades. See also tachiand katana.

dojo
A gymnasium or place of religious meditation.

giri
“Right reason”; the dutiful service which bushido directs the warrior to give to his family, clans and lord.

han
Large domains or provinces, which became prefectures after the Meiji restoration.

hara-kiri
“Stomach-cut”, a reversal of the ideographs for seppuku; a common or vulgar term for ritual-suicide.

ishin shishi
“Men of high purpose”, young, low-ranking samurai from the outside provinces who supported the bakumatsu.

kaishaku
The second in hara-kiri, the man who decapitates the performer after the stomach-cut has been accomplished.

katana
Originally designating a medium sword blade, between about two shaku long and shorter than a daito. Only samurai could carry blades longer than two shaku. Modern katanashave up to 30-inch blades. Alternate: uchigatanaor “inside sword” in the otoshi-zashi.

kozuka
A small knife or dart kept in a special compartment of the scabbard.

mushin no shin
“No-mindedness”; the mind capable of movement from unconscious thought to action; de-concentration.

ninja
A class of spies and assassins that originated in the 12th century, often depicted as clad and hooded in black and wielding exotic weapons.

ninjo
Man's will; the personal or conscientious inclination which is often opposed or constrained by giri or duty.

ninkyo eiga
“Chivalry films”; referring to a type of yakuzafilm. Epitomised by Gosha's The Wolves, which explores the “ethics” of gangsterism.

niten-ryu
“Two-sword style”; a method of fighting simultaneously with both swords developed by Miyamoto Musashi.

ronin
“Man on the wave”; a disenfranchised or masterless samurai; variant from the late Tokugawa era: roshior “wave knight”.

samurai
Literally a “servant”; warriors retained in the service of a clan.

sensei
A master, a term of respect for a teacher.

seppuku
“Cutting the stomach”; reversal of the ideographs in hara-kiri; formal term for ritual suicide.

shaku
A unit of linear measure. A modern shakuis 30cm or just under 12 inches (11.96).

shikomi-zue
A cane sword.

shinsengumi
“New group of select [men]”; citizen militia, quasi-unofficial police and vigilantes for the Tokugawa in Kyoto during the bakumatsu.

shogun
A generalissimo or field-marshal; the office held by the non-Imperial, hereditary rulers of feudal Japan.

shogunate
Period of de facto rule by a shogun.

tachi
A daitohung from sash or slung over the back.

yakuza
Literally “8-9-3” from a losing card combination; in feudal society a member of a roving group of gamblers (bakuto) or pimps (ponbiki).