Review: Films Set In Japan – The Last Samurai (2003)

Posted on June 10, 2011 by tokyofox

Back in 2006 I gave this film a very short brief review with brief being the word! I only said it was better than expected but too long for my liking which I say for any film over two hours. In preparation for my recent trip to Kansai I decided to watch it again. Whilst I (still) don’t mind it, it’s not my kind of film and it just goes to show how the filming locations and the movie itself can work hand-in-hand both ways. As you’d expect its the film first which often leads to the interest in the locations but this one worked the other way round with me.

Most of the film was made in New Zealand but Japanese locations included Chion-in temple and Nijo-jo in Kyoto and Engyoji temple in Himeji as featured in my ‘The Last Samurai filming locations’ article recently.

The film may move along at quite a slow pace and may be predictable in its outcome (hence the title!) but the casting, costumes, landscapes, storyline and film direction are very good with some fine battle scenes to boot. Hans Zimmer’s score incorporates traditional wood flutes and thunderous drums which adds a nice touch and adds to the suspense, sadness, empathy and joy.

The samurai have only one true goal which is to serve their Emperor and believed that to die under his service is an honour. The Japanese are accustomed to killing themselves in shame after defeat which they think is a noble death whereas Cruise’s character Algren shows his resilience, determination and perseverance by continuously rising again after defeat. As far as I know this is the film that really brought Ken Watanabe to western audiences for his poignant portrayal as the leader of the last clan of Samurai. The scenes between Watanabe and Cruise held my interest in terms of their feelings of hostility, compassion and camaraderie.

He may often get a hard time from the critics but Tom Cruise is loved by his fans and in this epic he perhaps delivers his most powerful performance in cinema. The Last Samurai shows a human story of one Westerner learning to embrace another culture but unlike most other films set in Japan it is done in a more subtle way where both parties realise they can learn from one another and after a hostile start they develop a respect for each other.

 

Tokyo Fox Rating 7/10

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Kansai Filming Locations: 3 Ninjas Kick Back (1994)

Posted on June 6, 2011 by tokyofox

 

Hikone brings the curtain down on my Golden Week trip to Kansai. At just under two hours away from Osaka, it is situated on the shores of Lake Biwa which is Japan’s largest freshwater lake. Hikone’s most famous historical site is Hikone-jo castle. This was my favourite castle of the trip which is perhaps surprising as it was the Continue reading →

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Kansai Trip 2011 Pt V: Osaka

Posted on June 3, 2011 by tokyofox

Japan’s second city was my base for the duration of my Golden Week trip but I actually spent very little time there apart from showering and sleeping in my three-star Shin-Osaka hotel. May 5th was Childrens Day in Japan so there was quite a bit of action on the streets which created a bit of a festival experience.

 

After that I met up with John and Neil at Osaka-jo Koen park where we went to see what is perhaps the city’s most famous landmark. Osaka-jo castle also had some live performances going on in terms of dancing, singing, street artists and so on. Some guy brought a load of lizards which were getting a lot of attention from the kids who wanted to touch the creatures. Me too of course! For years I have thought about getting my picture painted but usually I just can’t be bothered to wait. However, this time I saw a man doing them for 500 yen (less than 4GBP) in just five minutes. Well I guess you get what you pay for as anyone can see that it looks more like Wayne Rooney than yours truly!

          

My other days on this Kansai trip were all pretty busy so it was nice to just relax and take it easy on this day. We had an afternoon pizza and beer session before ending up in the heart of Osaka where we had a couple more drinks before John had to get his train back to Tokyo ready for work the following morning.

 

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Kansai Trip 2011 Pt IV: Kobe

Posted on June 2, 2011 by tokyofox

When I left Kobe behind (after a short stop-off) at the end of 2005 I had a very low opinion of the place and thought it to be really boring. I realised this time that my mistake then had been to get off at Kobe station rather than Sannomiya which is the heart of Kobe and has a nice feel about it. The reason for getting off here on the way back to my Osaka hotel from Himeji was to meet up with mates John and Neil of whom the latter had recently moved nearby. I had a quick look round the place before meeting them. No major sites but I did go to the Earthquake Park to see the memorial pictured below. The clock was damaged at 5.46 on the morning of January 17th and now indicates that time as an eternal reminder of the earthquake.

Whilst it wasn’t of magnitude compared to the one in Tokyo on March 11th it obviously still had a devestating impact on the area with over 6,000 dead, 415,000 injured, 100,000 homes devastated and 185,000 homes in need of partial reconstruction.

I didn’t have the time or energy to bother going to the Port of Kobe Earthquake Memorial Park which preserves part of a concrete pier destroyed back in 1995. Some of the pictures below were taken on my previous trip and give a good idea of how strong the earthquake was.

     

On my way to meet Neil (pictured) and John I passed by an Indian restaurant named Gaylord! Its actually a worldwide chain and I have seen their restaurants in Hong Kong and London. I am still amused each time I see the restaurant name!

 

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Kansai Filming Locations: The Last Samurai (2003)

Posted on June 1, 2011 by tokyofox

Most of this 2003 epic was shot in New Zealand but there were still a few interesting scenes filmed in the Kansai region of Japan. 12 minutes into the film sees the appearance of Chion-in Temple in Kyoto albeit with a bit of CGI. Although the steps lead to a temple it is not directly at the top or as dominating as the one in the picture (below) Four men including Tom Cruise are seen climbing the steep steps which are on the other side of the main entrance gate which is protected by two guards in the film.

Screen Shot 2015-11-18 at 09.27.45     

The action moves on to Daikodo (Main Hall) at Engyoji temple on the 41 minute mark which is where Algren (Cruise) meets Katsumoto (Watanabe). This is at the top of Mount Shosha in Himeji (west of Osaka) and provides the hilltop backdrop for Katsumoto’s mountain village.

Screen Shot 2015-11-18 at 09.46.11    cruise&watanabe  kansai GW 2011 206    

There is even a laminated picture card among the information pamphlets on the little souvenir shop counter in this building and it features five screenshots from ‘The Last Samurai‘.

The garden temple is opposite the wooden bit featured above and appears after 71 minutes as Watanabe and Cruise talk about something or another. The DVD extra’s reveal that it wasn’t filmed during the cherry blossom season and that those flowers were added to the place.

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The Buddha seen below also features for a few moments. No photos can be taken inside (I presume) so I settled for a sly zoom-in one from outside.

 

It’s not all Kansai though as there is a very brief shot of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on 79 minutes. Its the typical picture postcard type view of the place which I have seen and photographed many times over the years.

Screen Shot 2015-11-18 at 10.08.27 

How to get to Engyoji: Take bus #8 at Shinki Bus Terminal East gate of Himeji Kita station (if coming from JR Himeji station then exit the station and turn left and you will see the bus station across the road). Get off at the final stop which is ‘Shosha Ropeway’. A special ticket (1300 yen) gets you return bus and ropeway tickets. The temple entrance is 500 yen payable when you get to the top of the ropeway.

For other Japan filming locations click on the links below:

You Only Live Twice    Lost In Translation    Kill Bill    Babel    Godzilla    Walk Don’t Run   Into The Sun    Monster    Wasabi    The Grudge    Ju:On The Grudge    The Ramen Girl    The Toxic Avenger Pt II    The Wolverine    Memoirs Of A Geisha    The Last Samurai    House Of Bamboo

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Kansai Trip 2011 Pt III: Himeji

Posted on May 25, 2011 by tokyofox

The second full-day of my trip saw me go west to Himeji which is famous for its castle. At the moment its not too much to look at though and nor will it be for for the next five years as its under reconstruction and basically has a huge bag covering up the main part.  Luckily I saw the castle five years ago in its full glory (below) so I wasn’t too gutted to see it in its current state. On that previous visit it was closed but I did see the inside of it this time.

 

If you’ve ever seen James Bond in ‘You Only Live Twice‘ (1967) then you may recognise this place as the ninja training school. I had one screenshot with me and was most surprised to see that the stone statue thing behind Sean Connery was still knocking about. It can be found in the West Bailey and needless to say I was the only person in the whole place who took an interest in this piece of concrete!

 

Despite being made nearly 45 years ago it was still possible to locate some of the shooting scenes which feature below.

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Another film to be shot at Himeji-jo was Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Kagemusha‘ (The Shadow Warrior) in 1980 which is set in medieval times. This movie became known to me as it was bankrolled by 20th Century Fox who were convinced by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola to fund the remainder of the film in exchange for its international distribution rights after Toho Studios couldn’t fulfill the budget demands of the film.

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Himeji-jo wasn’t actually my first stop of the day though as I took a 30 minute bus ride to Mount Shosha which needed an additional ropeway to get there. The reason for visiting this mountain was to visit the sacred and peaceful Engyoji temple which is a nice 25 minute walk away. This mountaintop temple complex gets you away from the really big crowds and the wooden auditorium of Daikodo is lovely though not as old as one may think as in true Japanese fashion it was dismantled, repaired and restored in 1959 having originally been constructed at the end of the 15th century.

     

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Kansai Trip 2011 Pt II: Kyoto

Posted on May 22, 2011 by tokyofox

I spent two of my days on this trip in Kyoto with the majority of the places having some movie relevance but there were a few other ones which didn’t feature in any Hollywood production. It is often said that while Tokyo is the capital of Japan, Kyoto is the real Japan but I don’t see how that can be true when almost everyone there is a tourist!

After Fushimi-Inari I went to Nijo-jo which I had failed to visit on my two previous visits to Kyoto due to time constraints and maybe a lack of energy on my part if my memory serves me correctly. In all honesty I don’t think I really missed out on too much those times! It was nice enough and the palace gardens were fairly pleasant but it didn’t possess too much in the way of the wow-factor…….or maybe I was in a bad mood after being told by the official photographer that I couldn’t use my tripod. Unlike Japanese people I actually questioned him as to why and the best he could say was that it was dangerous which was just laughable when the place was almost desserted! There was nothing at the castle entrance about tripods not being allowed but I couldn’t be bothered to contest it too much by going back to the ticket office to complain. He probably just hates tripods as they are preventing him from getting money from taking group photos and so on in front of Ninomaru Palace!

 

I went to Kinkakuji which is known as Golden Pavillion in English. I visited here in December 2004 and stubbornly refused to go in a year later with my mate Asif but this was my first time to be in Kyoto out of Winter season so I went in, took a few photos (the first time to do so with a digital camera) and left!

 

Kiyomizudera temple was next on my list and took an eternity to get to thanks to the amount of traffic on the Kyoto roads mid-afternoon. Sadly it was difficult to capture the perfect picture as the sun was shining so brightly not that it stopped the masses from taking their photos! The one below is the best of a bad bunch!

 

A couple of days later I returned to Kyoto and went to Yoshimine-dera (mentioned in Kansai Trip 2011 Pt II) and then on to Chion-in temple. Somehow I got lost on the way and ended up at the top of the huge steps which saved me from ascending them and becoming out of breath like most other tourists. I didn’t look around this temple so much.

 

Heian-jingu shrine (below) was close by to that which is one of my favourite Kyoto temples. Popular but not on the level of Kinkajuji and Kiyomizudera and with enough space to wander fairly freely. This time I paid to go in its gardens and as nice as they were I am not sure the 600 yen entrance fee is such good value for money.

     

Gion was my final port of call in Kyoto. It’s famed for being the geisha district but I knew there was pretty much bugger all chance of actually seeing a real one. Needless to say but this pretty little area was packed full of tourists. I was very tired by this stage so didn’t hang about too long as I wanted to meet up with my mates John and Neil for some early evening drinks at The Hub which is a chain claiming to be a British bar though in reality its far removed from being anything too like one.

     

On the way to and from Kyoto I passed the giant Meiji chocolate bar near Takatsuki station and tried to snap it but it was difficult to capture it too well due to the speed of the train at that time.

 

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Kyoto Filming Locations: Memoirs Of A Geisha (2005)

Posted on May 19, 2011 by tokyofox

The majority of ‘Memoirs of a Geisha‘ (2005) was made in the USA but director Rob Marshall did feel it necessary to bring the production to Japan to open up the movie and feel like they were in some very real places rather than on the specially built sets as you can’t replicate the age and beauty of some shrines and temples.

 

Fushimi-Inari Taisha is undoubtedly the most memorable location. It appears after 40 minutes and again on 136 minutes in a flashback scene at the films climax. Accompanied by John Williams’ musical score, it is one of the most Continue reading →

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Kansai Trip 2011 Pt I: Fushimi-Inari Taisha

Posted on May 16, 2011 by tokyofox

I’d never heard of this shrine until a few months ago and so this became my first port of call on my fourth trip to Kyoto. After a long sleepless night on the bus from Tokyo to Osaka, followed by a local train to Kyoto and then the subway to Inari, I was at this place before 8am when it was fairly quiet.

Reasons I really liked this place:

1. It’s full of thousands of beautiful red torii gates.

2. Foxes are considered the messengers of Inari, and there are dozens of them (in stone form) around the place.

3. It’s in the mountains and thus slightly away from the more crowded parts of Kyoto.

4. It features a nice 4km hiking course up the mountain.

5. The torii gates appear in the 2005 film ‘Memoirs Of A Geisha’. (Full details here).

                               

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A New Addition To The Family #3 – George

Posted on May 13, 2011 by tokyofox

Welcome to the family! I’m an uncle again as George Smedley was born at 5.45am on April the 30th. Congratulations to Stuart and my sister Lorna on their first child.

   

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