I would agree that The Last Samurai was more than I expected and would agree that Hollywood stretches history. I checked into the facts and thought some insights would be interesting to those of you that appreciate accuracy.
This period of time is called the Meiji restoration. The emperor came into power at the age of 15. The next year was when the shogun fell, that is, the samurai. The emperor had little power but was the symbol of unity for Japan. This was a time when Japan became a modern industrial state and flexed its military power.
The rebellion shown in this movie is supposedly the Satsuma Rebellion. It was led by Saigo Takamori, played as Katsumoto in the movie. Saigo supported the emperor in 1867 but opposed Westernization of Japan and so he left and spent 4 yrs training a military force at which time in 1877, led the revolt. They were defeated and Saigo committed suicide and became a symbol of devotion to principle.
The Satsuma Army did not wear the armour as depicted in the movie but rather wore their own clothes with a white cloth on the upper arm for identification. The samurai actually used Enfield rifles, firing one round per minute. They used 28 mtn guns, 2 field guns and mortars. The swords used had been seized from some armories and were of inferior quality and some samurai may have carried spears. The Satsuma Army had no cavalry but a few officers were mounted. The numbers of soldiers were 300,000 Imperial and 25,000 samurai. Dead were 15,ooo Imperial and 6000 samurai.
Other tidbits: Custer did get a battlefield promotion to general despite Tom Cruise's comment; a samurai sword would have taken at least a month to make contrare to the movies' few days; the ninja attack was a bit hokey.
All in all I liked the movie and wasn't embarrassed by the romance. I felt the gai-jin's acceptance of Algren to be believable.
I think a lot more things can be compared to other movies such as Dances with Wolves and Kurosawa's films and would like to see comments on the photography.
