The Samurai flourished roughly between the mid 13th Century and 1877. A particular turn of political events marked their demise, as one can conjecture from the fact their existence is book-ended on one side by a specific year. The Meiji restoration of 1868 that marked the end of Japan's military Shogunate and the re-installation of the Emperor was the event that sealed their fate.
The transition of government in Japan was a bloody one. The catalysing incident of this transition was US Admiral Matthew Perry's arrival in Tokyo bay in 1853, forcing a previously closed Japan to open its ports to the world at cannon-point. The period between 1853 and 1868 is referred to as bakumatsu, and it was rife with civil war between the pro-Emperor and pro-Shogun divisions of the erstwhile powerful feudal warlords.
The bakumatsu period is one of the most romanticised periods of Japanese history. At the time, Japan was, in certain ways, like the American wild West, where life was cheap and erstwhile feudal lords violently held onto their threatened legacies like cattle barons guarding their homesteads with their Winchesters. Slowly, the Samurai lost their positions in the service of these lords, becoming ronin or 'masterless samurai'. The figure of the Colt toting, freewheeling cowboy outlaw has a lot in common with the wandering, katana wielding ronin.
I have chosen two fairly recent Samurai films to write about - Yoji Yamada's Twilight Samurai (2002) and Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai (2003). The latter made a big splash internationally, with Tom Cruise in the lead, and a powerful supporting cast comprising of Ken Watanabe (Batman Begins) and Hiroyuki Sanada (The White Countess). The former achieved great critical acclaim, including 12 Japanese Film Academy Awards and an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Both these films inherit from a great legacy - over 60 years of post-war Japanese cinema. Both films expand the horizons of the genre. Yet, placing these two films next to each other reveals some interesting things about two different kinds of filmmaking and casts a lot of light onto a particular kind of mythmaking that Hollywood subscribes to.
Twilight Samurai is the story of a petty Samurai Seibi Iguchi (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) who has lived a life of poverty, but manages to eke out a decent living for himself and his daughters. The film is set at the doorstep of the Meiji restoration, a period of calm before the storm of political transition. Seibi's situation is pitiable: A costly funeral for his deceased wife drove him to sell his sword, and with the sword went his ambition. All he wants is a quite farmer's life watching his daughters grow.
Seibi spends so much time in trying to provide for his family that he barely has time to take care of himself. He smells, wears torn kimono and looks the antithesis of the classic, stalwart figure of the warrior-retainer, earning him the unfortunate nickname 'twilight'. Yet, Seibi has formidable sword skills, and when this is discovered, it overturns his previously peaceful life. As the politics that surrounds Seibi turns to chaos, he becomes a pawn in a larger futile game of faction against faction, forced to fight for causes he doesn't believe in anymore.
His dismal situation keeps him from remarrying, even though his recently divorced childhood sweetheart, Tomoe, is eager and willing to be his wife despite the hardship. Still, Seibi somehow survives and marries Tomoe, but only after much bloodshed, of which he alone seems to understand the futility.
The Last Samurai is a look at the same period of Japanese history from an outsider's perspective. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is an American soldier who carries the burden of a lot of bloodshed upon his shoulders. Japan has recently opened its ports to outside trade, and this has created a need for men like Algren. He is hired by Omura, a Japanese businessman with political aspirations, whose ambitious business plans cannot be carried out without the defeat of the pro-Emperor, traditionalist Samurai, who keep wrecking the tracks of his goods trains.
Algren is to prepare the Japanese imperial army to effectively fight the Samurai. Seduced by the handsome returns, he takes the assignment despite the opposition of his conscience. However, upon his first engagement with the Samurai in battle, he is taken prisoner and carried to their remote village in the hills where he spends a winter as a 'guest' of their leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). In the course of the winter, he slowly comes to know the nobility, discipline and aesthetics that underlie the Samurai spirit. He receives training under Katsumoto's harsh lieutenant Ujio (played by Twilight Samurai's Hiroyuki Sanada!). At the end of the winter, there is no turning back. Algren switches sides and fights for the Samurai as a Samurai himself. The Samurai are wiped out, and Algren is the lone survivor.
What does either of these films do for the genre? In my opinion, they both expand the genre's 'horizon of meaning'. This is a useful phrase in understanding the concept of genre itself. An audience collectively recognises the traits of a genre. An audience member might not be able to rattle off a genre's traits when asked, but would be able to include or exclude a film from the genre upon watching it: A case of tacit understanding versus discursive understanding. The extent of this 'floating understanding' could be termed as the genre's 'horizon of meaning'. Shifting this horizon in a genre is no easy task. An audience doesn't let got of the things it has become comfortable with. Think about this the next time you congratulate yourself for pre-empting a cut-to-song-sequence, or when you're able to predict a slap on the hero's face within a few seconds of it being inflicted. But also notice that the fourth or fifth time of coming across such a point of recognition, you're quite pleased if the film does something absolutely contrary to your expectations.
Twilight Samurai is deeply rooted in the elements of the Samurai genre. The film carries an insightful humanism with it, the kind that Kurosawa exhibited with mastery in films like Seven Samurai. Seibi is a sensitive character, whose sensitive side is in constant conflict with his ingrained hardness from the dictates of the bushido warrior code. Seibi also subscribes to a bleak and sorrowful fatalism, as do some of the most famous Samurai heroes in the genre. Yet his fatalism is more forward-looking and more positive than that of the celluloid Samurai who came before him. In a moving scene he tells his daughter about the merits of learning - "if you have the power to think, you'll always survive somehow." When compared to the dead-end brick-wall existentialism of films like Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri, which exposes seemingly irreparable holes in the romanticized warrior code that was the cornerstone of Samurai behaviour, Twilight Samurai looks beyond the shortcomings of the code and the tumult of the bakumatsu period, treating this fatalism in a fresh light. In its case, the horizon of meaning is pushed forward from within, and the genre ends up marked, different than before.
The Last Samurai did not tap into the deeper elements of the genre that the purists would know of. It took the skeletal form of the traditional Samurai genre and inserted another genre into it - a well-recognised structure that Hollywood is adept at working with. This structure may be summarised as follows - 'unlikely protagonist transforms into great hero through unlikely events, his actions thereafter creating uncomplicated yet poignant meaning as catharsis.' There is enough room to dress this simplistic core to create compelling cinema, and there is enough expertise in Hollywood to carry this out convincingly. As was done with The Last Samurai. The film has its share of traditional characters - Taka, Algren's love interest, is a similar character to Twilight Samurai's Tomoe - a strong willed Samurai wife of porcelain complexion imbibing the warrior code as well as the men. The most traditional character Ujio, Katsumoto's lieutenant, played by Sanada who is the common element of the two films, resembles the great Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro) in appearance and demeanour. Mifune is credited with the greatest representations of the angry ronin on screen. However, the central characters of The Last Samurai - Algren and Katsumoto, are non-traditional is all respects.
Quite simply, Algren is an action hero in the way that we, as those who subscribe to Hollywood as a genre, understand an action hero. He shows courage under fire and is troubled by a dark past. Even Katsumoto is non-traditional with respect to the Samurai genre, simply because very few Samurai films ever showed a dialogue between western and eastern thought through such a character as Katsumoto. The presence of these two is a new thing in the genre, thus it changes the genre. It's an interesting change - in The Last Samurai we have an outsider paving a way into the genre, and we have an insider lighting the path for him.
This is important. For many, like me, it was the entry point into the whole genre of Samurai films itself.
A film like The Last Samurai thus pulls on the genre's horizon of meaning from the outside. The same way that the shifting of tectonic plates creates gaps that expose the earth's core, the shifting of a genre's horizon of meaning reveals the building blocks of the genre itself.
Both Twilight Samurai and The Last Samurai are thus interesting to look at alongside each other. Not only does each depict the dialogue of a traditional form with modernity, each represents the dialogue of a traditional form with modernity. In my opinion, both films achieve this in separate ways, but I stand with Twilight Samurai for its subtler storytelling. Seibi's character is very compelling and far more complex than Katsumoto's or Algren's.
The film also retains a quiet simplicity that was to be seen in earlier Samurai films. This is lost in the smoke of war in The Last Samurai. Yet, The Last Samurai is highly cinematic and epic in scale. It makes for an entertaining spectacle with action at its forefront. It is sweetly tempered by light shades of the Samurai genre, but these are not allowed to flourish so that the causal filmgoer doesn't get lost in unfamiliar territory.
Contrasts are tweaked to heighten the drama at the expense of historical accuracy - according to the film, the poor sword wielding Samurai were flattened unfairly by the newly acquired Gatling guns of the Imperial Army. According to history, even the Samurai who fought their last battles were well armed with guns, and hardly any of them fought in elaborate armour, at least not as impressive as the decorative, ceremonial attire worn by Algren, Katsumoto and their men in the final fight.
Such is the story: Different kinds of production for different audiences. It reminds us about the things other than divine inspiration that determine art.
For an exhaustive study of the Samurai genre, read The Samurai Film by Alain Silver.
To read an informative primer on the same, visit Green Cine. first published:May 23, 2006, 14:15 ISTlast updated:May 23, 2006, 14:15 IST
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I was never really alive to the Samurai film as a genre in itself until recently, when research into a work project took me into its world. Before, Samurai films were part of a larger undefined lump in my mind, that I called 'martial arts films'. Of course, a Samurai film can be a martial arts film, but it's socio-political setting allows the genre to be much more.
The Samurai flourished roughly between the mid 13th Century and 1877. A particular turn of political events marked their demise, as one can conjecture from the fact their existence is book-ended on one side by a specific year. The Meiji restoration of 1868 that marked the end of Japan's military Shogunate and the re-installation of the Emperor was the event that sealed their fate.
The transition of government in Japan was a bloody one. The catalysing incident of this transition was US Admiral Matthew Perry's arrival in Tokyo bay in 1853, forcing a previously closed Japan to open its ports to the world at cannon-point. The period between 1853 and 1868 is referred to as bakumatsu, and it was rife with civil war between the pro-Emperor and pro-Shogun divisions of the erstwhile powerful feudal warlords.
The bakumatsu period is one of the most romanticised periods of Japanese history. At the time, Japan was, in certain ways, like the American wild West, where life was cheap and erstwhile feudal lords violently held onto their threatened legacies like cattle barons guarding their homesteads with their Winchesters. Slowly, the Samurai lost their positions in the service of these lords, becoming ronin or 'masterless samurai'. The figure of the Colt toting, freewheeling cowboy outlaw has a lot in common with the wandering, katana wielding ronin.
I have chosen two fairly recent Samurai films to write about - Yoji Yamada's Twilight Samurai (2002) and Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai (2003). The latter made a big splash internationally, with Tom Cruise in the lead, and a powerful supporting cast comprising of Ken Watanabe (Batman Begins) and Hiroyuki Sanada (The White Countess). The former achieved great critical acclaim, including 12 Japanese Film Academy Awards and an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Both these films inherit from a great legacy - over 60 years of post-war Japanese cinema. Both films expand the horizons of the genre. Yet, placing these two films next to each other reveals some interesting things about two different kinds of filmmaking and casts a lot of light onto a particular kind of mythmaking that Hollywood subscribes to.
Twilight Samurai is the story of a petty Samurai Seibi Iguchi (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) who has lived a life of poverty, but manages to eke out a decent living for himself and his daughters. The film is set at the doorstep of the Meiji restoration, a period of calm before the storm of political transition. Seibi's situation is pitiable: A costly funeral for his deceased wife drove him to sell his sword, and with the sword went his ambition. All he wants is a quite farmer's life watching his daughters grow.
Seibi spends so much time in trying to provide for his family that he barely has time to take care of himself. He smells, wears torn kimono and looks the antithesis of the classic, stalwart figure of the warrior-retainer, earning him the unfortunate nickname 'twilight'. Yet, Seibi has formidable sword skills, and when this is discovered, it overturns his previously peaceful life. As the politics that surrounds Seibi turns to chaos, he becomes a pawn in a larger futile game of faction against faction, forced to fight for causes he doesn't believe in anymore.
His dismal situation keeps him from remarrying, even though his recently divorced childhood sweetheart, Tomoe, is eager and willing to be his wife despite the hardship. Still, Seibi somehow survives and marries Tomoe, but only after much bloodshed, of which he alone seems to understand the futility.
The Last Samurai is a look at the same period of Japanese history from an outsider's perspective. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is an American soldier who carries the burden of a lot of bloodshed upon his shoulders. Japan has recently opened its ports to outside trade, and this has created a need for men like Algren. He is hired by Omura, a Japanese businessman with political aspirations, whose ambitious business plans cannot be carried out without the defeat of the pro-Emperor, traditionalist Samurai, who keep wrecking the tracks of his goods trains.
Algren is to prepare the Japanese imperial army to effectively fight the Samurai. Seduced by the handsome returns, he takes the assignment despite the opposition of his conscience. However, upon his first engagement with the Samurai in battle, he is taken prisoner and carried to their remote village in the hills where he spends a winter as a 'guest' of their leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). In the course of the winter, he slowly comes to know the nobility, discipline and aesthetics that underlie the Samurai spirit. He receives training under Katsumoto's harsh lieutenant Ujio (played by Twilight Samurai's Hiroyuki Sanada!). At the end of the winter, there is no turning back. Algren switches sides and fights for the Samurai as a Samurai himself. The Samurai are wiped out, and Algren is the lone survivor.
What does either of these films do for the genre? In my opinion, they both expand the genre's 'horizon of meaning'. This is a useful phrase in understanding the concept of genre itself. An audience collectively recognises the traits of a genre. An audience member might not be able to rattle off a genre's traits when asked, but would be able to include or exclude a film from the genre upon watching it: A case of tacit understanding versus discursive understanding. The extent of this 'floating understanding' could be termed as the genre's 'horizon of meaning'. Shifting this horizon in a genre is no easy task. An audience doesn't let got of the things it has become comfortable with. Think about this the next time you congratulate yourself for pre-empting a cut-to-song-sequence, or when you're able to predict a slap on the hero's face within a few seconds of it being inflicted. But also notice that the fourth or fifth time of coming across such a point of recognition, you're quite pleased if the film does something absolutely contrary to your expectations.
Twilight Samurai is deeply rooted in the elements of the Samurai genre. The film carries an insightful humanism with it, the kind that Kurosawa exhibited with mastery in films like Seven Samurai. Seibi is a sensitive character, whose sensitive side is in constant conflict with his ingrained hardness from the dictates of the bushido warrior code. Seibi also subscribes to a bleak and sorrowful fatalism, as do some of the most famous Samurai heroes in the genre. Yet his fatalism is more forward-looking and more positive than that of the celluloid Samurai who came before him. In a moving scene he tells his daughter about the merits of learning - "if you have the power to think, you'll always survive somehow." When compared to the dead-end brick-wall existentialism of films like Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri, which exposes seemingly irreparable holes in the romanticized warrior code that was the cornerstone of Samurai behaviour, Twilight Samurai looks beyond the shortcomings of the code and the tumult of the bakumatsu period, treating this fatalism in a fresh light. In its case, the horizon of meaning is pushed forward from within, and the genre ends up marked, different than before.
The Last Samurai did not tap into the deeper elements of the genre that the purists would know of. It took the skeletal form of the traditional Samurai genre and inserted another genre into it - a well-recognised structure that Hollywood is adept at working with. This structure may be summarised as follows - 'unlikely protagonist transforms into great hero through unlikely events, his actions thereafter creating uncomplicated yet poignant meaning as catharsis.' There is enough room to dress this simplistic core to create compelling cinema, and there is enough expertise in Hollywood to carry this out convincingly. As was done with The Last Samurai. The film has its share of traditional characters - Taka, Algren's love interest, is a similar character to Twilight Samurai's Tomoe - a strong willed Samurai wife of porcelain complexion imbibing the warrior code as well as the men. The most traditional character Ujio, Katsumoto's lieutenant, played by Sanada who is the common element of the two films, resembles the great Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro) in appearance and demeanour. Mifune is credited with the greatest representations of the angry ronin on screen. However, the central characters of The Last Samurai - Algren and Katsumoto, are non-traditional is all respects.
Quite simply, Algren is an action hero in the way that we, as those who subscribe to Hollywood as a genre, understand an action hero. He shows courage under fire and is troubled by a dark past. Even Katsumoto is non-traditional with respect to the Samurai genre, simply because very few Samurai films ever showed a dialogue between western and eastern thought through such a character as Katsumoto. The presence of these two is a new thing in the genre, thus it changes the genre. It's an interesting change - in The Last Samurai we have an outsider paving a way into the genre, and we have an insider lighting the path for him.
This is important. For many, like me, it was the entry point into the whole genre of Samurai films itself.
A film like The Last Samurai thus pulls on the genre's horizon of meaning from the outside. The same way that the shifting of tectonic plates creates gaps that expose the earth's core, the shifting of a genre's horizon of meaning reveals the building blocks of the genre itself.
Both Twilight Samurai and The Last Samurai are thus interesting to look at alongside each other. Not only does each depict the dialogue of a traditional form with modernity, each represents the dialogue of a traditional form with modernity. In my opinion, both films achieve this in separate ways, but I stand with Twilight Samurai for its subtler storytelling. Seibi's character is very compelling and far more complex than Katsumoto's or Algren's.
The film also retains a quiet simplicity that was to be seen in earlier Samurai films. This is lost in the smoke of war in The Last Samurai. Yet, The Last Samurai is highly cinematic and epic in scale. It makes for an entertaining spectacle with action at its forefront. It is sweetly tempered by light shades of the Samurai genre, but these are not allowed to flourish so that the causal filmgoer doesn't get lost in unfamiliar territory.
Contrasts are tweaked to heighten the drama at the expense of historical accuracy - according to the film, the poor sword wielding Samurai were flattened unfairly by the newly acquired Gatling guns of the Imperial Army. According to history, even the Samurai who fought their last battles were well armed with guns, and hardly any of them fought in elaborate armour, at least not as impressive as the decorative, ceremonial attire worn by Algren, Katsumoto and their men in the final fight.
Such is the story: Different kinds of production for different audiences. It reminds us about the things other than divine inspiration that determine art.
For an exhaustive study of the Samurai genre, read The Samurai Film by Alain Silver.
To read an informative primer on the same, visit Green Cine.
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