A warrior lets his guard down. Courtesy of IMDB.com

How to Make the Cut
Film Preview: "The Last Samurai"

By Tommy Tung

Katsumoto (Watanabe) and Taka (Koyuki) are shadows against the world. Courtesy of IMDB.com

The expatriate neck-deep in a samurai conflict--not an uncommon movie plot if you ask Richard Chamberlain's character in the TV miniseries "Shogun" (1980) or Christopher Lambert's character in "The Hunted" (1995). On December 5, how "The Last Samurai" cuts it differently will make it the most ambitious film this winter holiday season. Japanese culture, history, and philosophy become organic story elements instead of artificial afterthoughts that plagued the shopworn ninja movies of the 80s. Furthermore, these elements don't inundate the characters of "The Last Samurai." They enliven them.

If the victors write history, then these filmmakers re-write it with great reverence and meditation. This fiction takes place in the late 1870s during the Meiji restoration, a period in which Westernization outgrew feudalism and the samurai's way of life. The epic tale begins when the Emperor of Japan hires a broken down Civil War hero, Captain Algren (Tom Cruise), to train an army to eradicate the last remaining samurai. When Algren faces off with the samurai leader, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), he falls in love with the warrior code missing in his life.

Katsumoto cuts twice as fast. Courtesy of IMDB.com

To prepare for these roles, Cruise and Watanabe adopted the samurai mentality, both researched and discovered on the set. Watanabe, an established actor in Japanese cinema, comments in the Warner Bros. production notes about how a Zen approach brought realism out of the performance: "Before shooting, [the director] Ed said to me, ÔYou have to feel everything--the campfire, the sound of insects, wind, temperature. It's a cold night. Hear the horses stirring. Tom's breathing.' And all of this for a scene, in which I had no dialogue. In a way, it was more like direction for living than for acting, which is a good example of Bushido spirit. Bushido is like breathing, being aware of our connection to nature and to everything. The Samurai don't talk about it, they simply live it."

Such passion for authenticity also burns within the hearts of the storytellers: director/writer Edward Zwick (director of "Legends of the Fall"), writer Marshall Herskovitz (co-creator of "thirtysomething"), and writer John Logan (co-writer on "Gladiator"). In the production notes, Zwick says, "The Japan we created is one of imagination in that it no longer exists, but I think we got as close as we could." Such commitment shines in the staging of battle scenes, in which Zwick went so far as to consider the art of war according to legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi. Zwick consulted Musashi's manual on martial arts, "The Book of Five Rings," recently popularized as a bible for business strategy.

Algren has road rage. Courtesy of IMDB.com

Other areas of production also respect Japanese traditions, from scoring music with taiko drums, shakuhachi (bamboo flutes), and koto (a 13-stringed zither-like instrument) down to designing the Ginza district of Tokyo, where traditional rickshaws pass under the telegraph lines of encroaching Western civilization. The Japanese martial arts choreography by stunt coordinator Nick Powell ("The Bourne Identity") will add a refreshing presence among "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" and "The Matrix: Revolutions," two of many recent movies obsessed with kung fu choreography. Powell and his stunt team devised a well-rounded training regiment of Kendo, archery, and hand-to-hand combat.

So if you lack confidence in the film's portrayal of Japanese culture, then your fears should be assuaged. The only fear you should have is if you're a studio executive going head-to-head with Warner Bros. this December. You'd be better off trying hara-kiri.

lastsamurai.com

November 21, 2003