A Movie Review of: The Last Samurai

(Facts and Fictions)

Samurai’s are mostly urban dueler’s and not rural folks.

Originally, Samurai’s are rent collector or basically “the goons of a gang leader nowadays” but
as time passed they have develop their own cultures and proven themselves to be honorable and
loyal to their masters and so they became the elite warrior. Shogun, masters of the samurai lives
in their own castle-town and so as there samurais. Thus, samurais are urban duelers and not rural
duelers.

Pareng Tom’s portrayal was based on a real historical figure, not an American but a
French Man.
Tom’s character is basically based on Jules Brunet’s “adventure” on Japan as an Envoy for
France. Yes, he is a military man of the French Army. Before the Emperor was returned to
power, Brunet sided with the Tokugawa shogunate in attempts to preserve the samurai order and
prevent the Emperor from taking the throne. The Emperor's partisans were victorious in the
Boshin War of 1868-1869. The French military led by Brunet were unsuccessful in helping the
shogunate and were ordered to leave Japan. Brunet stayed behind. He resigned his post in the
French army and headed north (along with several of his French comrades) to join the remaining
samurai rebellion factions in hope of launching a counter-attack against the Emperor's Imperial
Army. Brunet led and fought several battles along side the samurai rebels. The final, and decisive
battle that finally crushed the rebellion occurred in the northern island of Hokkaido. 800 of the
rebellious shogunate supporters made their stand against 8000 Imperial troops.

A strong, organized, and not a bunch of stupid morons comprises the first volunteers for
the Imperial Army of Japan.
By 1876, the Imperial Army was, indeed, a conscript army, but had a strong core of volunteers,
mostly samurai, and a pretty well-defined training program. They were not using primitive
muzzle-loading rifles at that point, either. Japanese commoners, who are so inept at the
beginning of the film that they literally can't shoot if their lives depend on it, had proven quite
adept with military technology in the 1860s, when small mixed samurai-commoner militias with
breech-loading and repeating rifles defeated much larger Shogunal forces still heavily reliant on
traditional spear, sword and arrow weaponry. Those militias formed the core of the post-Meiji
Restoration (as the 1868 transition is usually called) Imperial Army. And Imperial forces had a
few adventures in the 1870s, including the Taiwan expedition (1874) and the mission to secure
the Kanghwa Treaty in 1876, not to mention suppression of a number of domestic disturbances,
including both samurai and cultivator uprisings.