Ordinary audiences can't understand some of the scenes in the movie, but it doesn't prevent them from relish the oriental culture shown in the movie: elegant tea ceremony, flower arrangement, incense ceremony, elegant music, chess course, calligraphy, fairy tale-like beautiful scenery, and fascinating movie soundtrack that can flow directly into people's hearts.

"Great! I didn't expect Japan to be so beautiful! ”

"You're wrong, it's not Japan, it's New Zealand! Haven't you watched Cruise's interview? Most of the exterior scenes were filmed in New Zealand, and only the Japanese Imperial Palace and indoor scenes were filmed in Japan. ”

"Oh God, what's the name of that tune? It's so good, I'm going to have to buy the soundtrack! ”

The light and shadow public relations personnel mixed in the audience couldn't cry or laugh, and no one cared about the connotation in the boss movie, but they all liked the scenery and music.

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A professional film critic went overnight to look at Stephen, a famous British historian and an authoritative expert known for his research on samurai history? Turnbull's magnum opus "The Last Samurai", I heard that before China Ming made this movie, he turned over this historical research document.

'Glory and ruin'

The samurai, a legendary group of 'heroes' of ancient Japan, have long been associated with the history of military killing. However, China Ming uses a "The Last Samurai" to look beyond the field of bloody battles and paint a picture of the real samurai world for us.

Many well-known themes such as suicide worship, ritualized revenge, and Japanese swords, which are often expressed by violence and slaughter, are given artistic and poetic interpretation and embodiment ...... in this film. - "Premiere"

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'About Ideals and Beliefs'

"The Last Samurai" is about a Prussian officer who was ordered to come to Japan to help the Meiji government train the new army; On the other hand, Katsumoto Mori, who was modeled after Saigo Takamori, one of the 'Three Masters of the Meiji Era', served as the last pillar of the bushido tradition and led the old-style army to carry out military advice against the new army, which used modern firearms.

During a battle, a Prussian officer was captured and taken to his base camp by Mori Katsumoto, where he did not embrace the spirit of bushido, but became obsessed with Japanese culture.

At the end of the Tokugawa period and the Meiji era, the samurai class had declined. As the retainers of the lord, the samurai have been reduced to ronin in the streets with the fall of the shogunate. What Mori Katsumoto did was to maintain the rule of Chrysanthemum and Sword, and advised Meiji not to accept total Westernization. In contrast to the former, what he did should have been regarded as going against the current, and his eventual defeat was inevitable, and in the latter, his death also changed Meiji's choice - Japan is one of the countries with the best preservation of traditional culture.

In the end, all the samurai fell under machine-gun fire, and it was a triumph of technology. The seriously wounded Mori Katsumoto was seppuku with the help of Prussian officers, and all the soldiers of the New Army took off their hats and knelt down, and one was born great and died a glorious death, which was a spiritual victory. - Los Angeles Times

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Needless to say, this is a great movie, not only for its excellent soundtrack and beautiful graphics, but also for its understanding of cultural heritage.

From the story itself, in fact, "The Last Samurai", like China Ming's "Brave Heart", uses history as material that can be modified, telling a story he wants to tell.

The story can be simply summarized as: the Japanese emperor in order to put the country on the track of modernization and development, the process of purging the internal conservative forces. In the story, the conservative samurai leader Mori Katsumoto is very resistant to the emperor's new policy, destroying the railroad and refusing to use new weapons. Undoubtedly, judging from the development of historical trends, they are backward and will inevitably be eliminated.

However, what I did not expect was that China Ming aimed his critical eyes at the supreme ruler of Japan, the emperor.

In the film, China Ming devotes a lot of space to describing Heinche's experiences in a small Japanese village, showing the entire traditional Japanese culture - bushido, tea ceremony, flower arrangement, Zen Buddhism...... These are Japanese traditions.

In fact, when watching the movie, the audience will feel sorry for those samurai - because if they pick up guns, they will definitely be the best Japanese soldiers. But why do they refuse to put down their swords?

Hechein, a Prussian aristocratic officer, gave a voiceover to the emperor at the end.

"Were you with him when he died?"

"Yes."

"Then you sue me, how did he die?"

"No, Your Majesty, I'll tell you how he got alive."

We can see how Katsumoto Mori is trying to understand the world and other civilizations in the movie. He is old-fashioned, but he is not self-contained.

When his traditional civilization was violently interrupted by the Western world, he did not know where to go for the cultural development of a nation, but he has been exploring, although it was eventually abandoned by the times, but at least the traditional civilization was continued.

At the end of the film, when the Japanese Western-style army collectively kneels in front of his corpse, we can feel that the traditional Japanese bushido spirit seeps out of the armor and infiltrates into every Western-style military uniform, which is the continuation of culture. - The Hollywood Reporter

Fortunately, there are these professional film critics, and the audience who flocked to the cinema the next day began to appreciate the beautiful pictures and beautiful soundtracks that they had never seen before, and at the same time, they understood the connotation of the whole story according to those film reviews.

After watching the movie, the audience was discussing this beautiful and elegant film. Yes, many people still can't understand those oriental concepts, but that doesn't prevent them from understanding and enjoying the scenery and music in the film according to their own ideas.

"Wow, doesn't China know that bushido is evil?"

"You're talking about the Japanese devils of World War II, it's the bushido that has deteriorated!"

"It's just, I didn't see that Cruise only likes the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and that sitting, why did he sit there?"

"Ok, anyway, it's definitely a great movie! Even if I can't understand some of the scenes, just the music and the graphics can be called great! ”

Other fans looked at it with disdain, and some people asked rhetorically: "Has China Ming made a bad movie?" We don't understand, it's because of cultural differences! ”

"That is, I heard Cruise say on TV that China Ming drinks tea, and there is no milk in it. He also said that if you calm down, you will be able to drink the taste of nature from the tea. ”

Sun Tzu has definitely never made bad movies, and even the ROTTEN/TOMATOES (Rotten Tomatoes) network, which was occupied by young people and just founded last year, gave "The Last Samurai" a high score of 91% for freshness.

Under the praise of film critics and the word-of-mouth publicity of fans, the box office of "The Last Samurai" has also risen. It won $43.61 million at the box office in its first week, beating the critics' equally applauded "American Beauty" directed by Sam Mendes and starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening.

Of course, there are also people who say the opposite, saying that China is opportunistic, using oriental beauty to satisfy the audience's curiosity, in essence, it is summoning the soul of the decadent backward culture. It's just that those voices of opposition are quickly drowned out in the voices of praise.