The Last Samurai Essay

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Papadopoulos 1 In the Battle of Shiroyama in September of 1877, 400 samurai fought against 30,000 imperial soldiers. Although the samurai lost, they showed great courage, like the samurai in The Last Samurai. Both accurate to what happen in history and a great film, The Last Samurai portrays real characters, real events, and accurately portrays the way of the samurai. Most of the characters are straight from history and the battles the samurai fought took place on real battlefields. The actors who played samurai roles seemed to be from samurai descent because of such an accurate portrayal bushido. Nathan Algren is a Civil War veteran who has been traumatized by his experiences during the Civil War fighting Native Americans. He spends his time telling war stories to the audiences of gun shows. One day, he is approached by Omura, a Japanese businessman who is trying to recruit foreign military officers to train the Imperial…show more content…
The time period and events that The Last Samurai were based on led to how Japan is today. When Nathan Algren goes to Japan, he is introduced to a nation going through major social and economic changes. This time of transformation is known as the Meiji Era. During the Meiji Era, Japan modernized. Along with modernization, Japan’s army developed into a military like England’s or other European powers (Meiji Restoration and Meiji Era). This caused all the samurai to go into unemployment and conflict erupted between the imperial government and the ex-samurai. The Satsuma Rebellion was the struggle to fight against the Meiji Restoration in the 1870’s. This was why the samurai were against the new government in The Last Samurai (The Last Samurai). As the months went by, the rebellion was finally defeated in the Battle of Shiroyama in the September of 1877. In The Last Samurai, this was portrayed by the final battle where the last the samurai were killed off (The Last
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