Making a Samurai Western: Japan and the

White Samurai Fantasy in The Last Samurai

MINA SHIN

A
WHITE SAMURAI WITH BLOND HAIR AND BLUE EYES IS NOT AN
unfamiliar image in American popular culture—notoriously,
Richard Chamberlain as Black thorne/Anjin-sang in the early
seventeenth-century feudal Japan in the television miniseries Shogun
(1980), based on James Clavell’s novel, Tom Cruise as Nathan Algren
in The Last Samurai (2003), Uma Thurman as a female samurai and
kung fu master in Kill Bill (2003), and most recently David Anders as
Takezo Kensei in the popular NBC TV series Heroes (2007). The white
fantasy of becoming a samurai warrior is one symptom representing
the complicated American desire for Japan that has been shaped by the
shifting Japanese-American relations of the past 150 years. Since
Commodore Perry’s black ship opened the door of Japan in 1853, the
United States and Japan have developed a complicated relationship,
which arguably ‘‘has undoubtedly been of tremendous importance in
the shaping of the contemporary world order and of twentieth-century
life generally’’ (Robertson 183). Japan and the United States have
reached unprecedented closeness today, but, as historian John W. Dower
puts it, ‘‘The U.S.-Japan relationship is not an equal one, and never has
been’’ (‘‘Graphic Japanese’’ 302). This unequal relationship is registered
in representations of Japan in contemporary Hollywood cinema and
television, which embody contradictions within the American popular
discourse of Japan that draws on the historical relations between two
countries as friend and enemy, as well as partner and competitor.
Hollywood has portrayed the Japanese in many different ways: to
name a few, a barbaric Oriental, martial samurai warrior, exotic geisha,

The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 43, No. 5, 2010

r 2010, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

1065
1066 Mina Shin

mysterious Zen, economic animal, sneaky ninja, and ruthless yakuza.

The image of Hollywood’s white samurai is particularly interesting.
During the American occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952,
Supreme Commander Allied Powers (SCAP) banned the making of
samurai movies (Tada 37) based on the belief that the samurai Bushido,
the code of honor of the samurai, fueled Japan’s aggressive and expan-
sion-oriented fascism which led to World War II. Japanese critic Sato
Tadao admits that popular prewar Japanese samurai movies influenced
the growth of a militant spirit in the country (‘‘Akira Kurosawa’’ 29). It
was thought that the Japanese Imperial Army inherited the spirit of
feudal samurais—the only alleged difference was that it was armed
with rifles instead of swords. The modern army still worshipped the
Emperor as ‘‘the living God’’ and believed in his absolute authority.
The kamikaze pilots (a Japanese term which means ‘‘warriors of the
divine wind’’) during World War II, whose suicidal mission was to
crash their planes into American war ships and bombers, were often
compared with ‘‘modern samurai.’’ During World War II, American
propaganda criticized such loyalty and obedience to the Emperor as
the primary source of Japanese madness and savageness; Japanese
were portrayed as either subhuman or superhuman, possessed of
uncanny discipline and superhuman fighting skills (Dower, War
without Mercy 9). The Occupation government naturally concluded
that banning samurai films would eliminate Japanese militarism and
ultranationalism. However, according to Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, samurai
film or jidaigeki film was far from promoting feudal ideals and, in fact,
the genre was even suppressed by the militaristic Japanese government
(222 – 24).
Whether or not samurai genre actually has to do with Japanese
militarism that directed to World War II, what seems more critical to
me is that in the contemporary world, Hollywood has made films and
television series that highly glorify samurai soldiers and feudal mil-
itarism through the eyes of white samurai characters. The Last Samurai
is a particularly interesting film given its popularity both in the
United States and Japan, and its infusion of Western and samurai
genres, both of which are considered the most national genres of each
country. What are the politics behind this ironic filmmaking, given the
fact that samurai movies are no longer popular in Japan except on small
TV screens and that such romanticization and glorification of samurai
culture cannot be easily found in Japan’s own samurai movies?1
Making a Samurai Western 1067

In this article, I will examine the politics of glorification and ro-

manticization of a samurai in The Last Samurai by looking at the way
the film revives the Western mythology by infusing it with a samurai
genre. The Last Samurai is a ‘‘samurai Western,’’ a nostalgic saga for the
Wild West that mirrors its demise onto the fall of the samurai class and
Japanese feudal society. Identifying with Japan’s history of loss and
recovery, it rehabilitates the American past of the Indian genocide as an
inevitable and honorable historical progress for the modern nation.
Moreover, the portrait of Japan as a masculine war hero armed with
spirituality reflects the critical period of post-9/11 and the Iraq War,
wherein the United States desires Japan as a strong ally and political
partner. There is a certain domestic need to project a strong Japan in
the US imagination.

Invention of a Samurai Western

The Last Samurai is set in the 1870s, shortly after the Meiji Restoration
(1866 – 69) when Japan threw off its feudal past and rushed into the
modern age, adopting Western ideas, techniques, and institutions.
Among others, building a modern national military was the biggest
task in these reforms. The slogans of Meiji Restoration were fukoku
kyohei, meaning ‘‘a rich country, a strong military,’’ and wakon yosai,
meaning ‘‘Japanese spirit, Western technology’’ (Yoshimoto 216). The
abolishment of a feudal military system that centered on a Shogun was
inevitable; the edicts commanded samurais to cut their hair off in
Western style and to cease wearing swords, as is shown in The Last
Samurai. A conscription army that allowed the lower classes, including
peasants, into the army system was skillfully presented as a democratic
gesture rather than an autocratic imposition (Harries 23). Although the
film does not depict what came next after Japan’s successful transfor-
mation into a modern military system, we all know that it led to
Japan’s imperialism during World War II—the invasion of Russia,
mainland China, Hong Kong, and Korea.
The 1870s were also a time period in which the United States
prepared to become a great world power, after the Civil War (1861 –
65). In The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad
since 1750, borrowing the words of historian David P. Cook, Walter
LaFeber defines the period of 1865 – 96 in American history as a time
1068 Mina Shin

of ‘‘laying the foundations for Superpowerdom’’ (157). He argues that

the steel and oil businesses run by Andrew Carnegie and John D.
Rockefeller, respectively, laid the foundations on which was built the
world’s economic superpower of the twentieth century (158). Economic
expansion naturally led to territorial expansion in and outside the
United States. The wars against Native Americans reached their peak
between 1870 and 1890. They ‘‘marked the last step needed to unify and
consolidate the United States before Americans could go abroad to be-
come the superpower of the twentieth century’’ (168). The ideology of
‘‘Manifest Destiny,’’ the foundation of the westward movement that be-
lieved it was a divine destiny to expand its territory from the East coast to
the West coast, was extended to the Pacific Ocean, including the an-
nexation of Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines in the following decades.
These stories about the foundations of imperialism in the United
States and Japan are juxtaposed through Hollywood fictionalization in
The Last Samurai. The French and Prussians, who were hired by the
Meiji government to train the conscript army in the real history
(Harries 21 – 22), were replaced with Americans. The film fictionalizes
Japan striving to westernize itself in coalition with American interests
by making exclusive rights to buy modern weapons from the United
States. This historical inaccuracy is an inevitable dramatic device to
make a ‘‘samurai Western.’’ The film has a unique narrative that com-
bines the generic characteristics of the American Western with the
samurai film. It was not an odd choice because the two genres are often
compared due to their historical setting in the past, focus on violent
action, and construction of national myths.
In his book Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-
Century America, Richard Slotkin criticizes the ideological and symbolic
functions of the Frontier myth in the Western. He introduces the
prevailing mythic narrative structure in the Western.

In each stage of its development, the Myth of the Frontier relates the
achievement of ‘‘progress’’ to a particular form or scenario of violent
action. ‘‘Progress’’ itself was defined in different ways: the Puritan
colonist emphasized the achievement of spiritual regeneration
through frontier adventure; Jeffersonian (and later, the disciples of
Turner’s ‘‘Frontier Thesis’’) saw the frontier settlement as a re-
enactment and democratic renewal of the original ‘‘social contract.’’ . . .
But in each case, the Myth represented the redemption of American
spirit or fortune as something to be achieved by playing through a
Making a Samurai Western 1069

scenario of separation, temporary regression to a more primitive or

natural state, and regeneration through violence. (12)

Slotkin argues that this scenario of separation, temporary regression,

and regeneration through violence is problematic because violence is
presented as ‘‘an essential and necessary part of the process through
which American society was established and through which its dem-
ocratic values are defended and enforced’’ (352).
The Last Samurai repeats the same scenario. Algren gets separated
from his country and his original mission (‘‘separation’’), joins the
primitive samurai group who uses nonmodern weapons (‘‘temporary
regression’’), fights in the honorable war against the Imperial Army on
the side of samurai, and finally redeems his guilt for the Indian geno-
cide (‘‘redemption of American spirit’’). In this narrative, violence used
against samurai is presented as an essential and necessary part of the
process through which Japanese society was established as a modern
nation.
Edward Zwick states in the production notes, ‘‘The Japan we created
is one of imagination in that it no longer exists’’ (quoted in Tung). In
other words, Japan and the samurai in the film are imaginary creations
based on American fantasy and American needs to reflect American
history. The film is a quintessential American Western in Japanese
guise. Only the Wild West backdrop is replaced with a Japanese prairie,
and the Native Americans are merely replaced with Japanese. Nostalgia
for the doomed samurai, ‘‘the nobility of failure’’ in Ivan Morris’s term
(Abramowitz), is, in fact, nostalgia for the Wild West before its dream
was tainted by the Indian genocide and industrialization. Like other
American Westerns, The Last Samurai symbolically rehabilitates the
American shameful past of the Indian genocide as inevitable and hon-
orable historical progress toward modern America.
Considering this narrative, it is not surprising that The Last Samurai
is often called ‘‘Dances with Zen Buddhism’’ (Stone), or ‘‘Dances with
Samurai’’ (McCarthy). The film resembles Kevin Costner’s Western,
Dances with Wolves (1990), in many ways. Both films ostensibly seem to
present the superiority of other cultures, yet the stories unfold from the
white man’s perspectives, and thus end up celebrating the white man’s
heroism. Dances with Wolves is a story about Civil War Lieutenant John
Dunbar (Kevin Costner), who is worn out by the American Civil War,
goes to the frontier post he dreams of, and finds true peace by
1070 Mina Shin

befriending a Sioux tribe. Similarly, Algren, disillusioned war veteran,

goes to Japan, lives with Japanese samurai and begins to love their
culture. As Dunbar is reborn in the Sioux tribe, Algren finds a new life
in a Japanese village. John Dunbar is an implausible white character
whose curiosity outweighs his prejudices and the prevailing racism of
that time. As the Sioux Indian Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) says,
‘‘He’s a special white man.’’ It is his tolerance and open-mindedness
that find the values of Indian civilization, not the excellence of
Indian culture per se. It is the same in The Last Samurai. What
matters is not the superiority of Japanese culture itself, but the fact
that Algren finds and loves it. This discovery of Japanese culture
makes Algren different from other white Americans, portrayed as
opportunists in the film. Both Dunbar and Algren are examples of
bell hooks’ arguments that the ‘‘white male’s life becomes richer,
more pleasurable, if he accepts diversity’’ (31). To put it differently, the
white male’s acceptance of Indian and Japanese culture, respectively,
implies the superior American ability to master other cultures.
Algren learns how to use a samurai sword very quickly. Of course
it is not easy at first, but he never gives up and finally succeeds. He is
even superior to other samurai in learning Japanese culture. Sean M.
Tierney argues that a white hero mastering Asian martial arts in
Hollywood films reflects American narcissism and the ideology of
white superiority (622). In fact, a white hero who crosses the borders
between ‘‘wilderness and civilization’’ and operates effectively on both
sides of the line is the typical character of the Western, as Slotkin
demonstrates (351).
Another way both films celebrate white heroism is the narrative in
which white characters fight on the side of nonwhites. After Dunbar
fights in a war on the side of the Sioux, against the Pawnee, he writes in
his journal, ‘‘I’ve never been in a battle like this. There was no dark
political objective. This was not a fight for territory or riches or to
make men free. It had been fought . . . to protect the lives of women
and children and loved ones . . . I felt a pride I’d never felt before. I’d
never really known who John Dunbar was.’’ The same goes for The Last
Samurai. Algren’s heroism climaxes in the battle as he stands on the
side of the samurai against his own American army. Algren’s
motivation is simple. To quote from Dunbar’s notes, there is no
dark political objective in his fight. He fights to protect the lives
of a woman he falls in love with and her children. Although the
Making a Samurai Western 1071

samurais are doomed to lose, Algren fights courageously until the last
moment. Through this last heroic act, Algren recovers his honor and
moral code that had been destroyed by his contribution to the Indian
genocide. By helping another racial minority—Japanese in this case—
Algren finds his salvation from ‘‘white guilt.’’ White guilt can be
defined as feelings of guilt experienced by white people when they
consider present or past wrongs committed by whites against nonwhite
people. The narrative of white guilt in both films reflects a collective
sense of guilt in American society regarding the Indian genocide
and the hardship of racial minorities. However, as usual, such narrative
is used to seek the symbolic salvation of white guilt and celebrate
white heroism.
While The Last Samurai follows the ideological narrative of the
Western, it also presents a generic characteristic unique to samurai
films—mystical aversion to guns. In general, the heroism of a Western
protagonist comes from his shooting skills. But in samurai films, the
true samurai disdains the gun because the gun is considered ‘‘a symbol
of encroaching industrialization, a manifestation of the nonmythical
and antitraditional, and an embodiment of the impersonal mechani-
zation of war (Kaminsky 64 – 65).’’ To samurai, military pride was
based on individual honor, not technology. Japan’s aversion to guns is
based on historical fact: Japan adopted guns once but abandoned them
soon after. It is not during the Meiji Restoration when guns were first
introduced in Japan, as shown in The Last Samurai. Guns arrived in
1543 when Europeans opened the door to Japan as the first Westerners.
Noel Perrin’s book Giving Up the Gun: Japanese Reversion to the Sword,
1543 – 1879 tells the remarkable history in which Japan voluntarily
chose to give up an advanced military weapon and returned to a more
primitive weapon, the sword. Japan closed its door to the West until
1853 when Commodore Perry reopened the door.
The disdain for guns is easily detectable in The Last Samurai.
Algren’s aversion to guns comes from his killing of innocent Native
American women and children in the Indian Wars. He once makes a
living by demonstrating his gun skills at a Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
type of show (although the show did not exist in this time period yet).
Here, guns imply corruption and commercial opportunism. In con-
trast, samurai swords are portrayed as sacred weapons. In the end of the
film, Algren delivers the sword of the dead Katsumoto to the Meiji
emperor. The sword symbolizes the integrity and spirit of samurai
1072 Mina Shin

Bushido that should be cherished. What is ironic in such a represen-

tation is that typically in American popular culture a samurai sword
has been portrayed as ‘‘a symbol of everything negative about Japanese
tradition’’ such as ‘‘feudal loyalty, revenge, and the irrational energy and
brutality of Japanese’’ whereas a Western hero’s gun is depicted as ‘‘a
weapon of self-defense and individualism’’ (Yoshimoto 225). While
such reversal of representation is remarkable, it is noteworthy that in the
end Nathan Algren is the only survivor, ‘‘the last samurai,’’ to inherit
samurai Bushido. Although it is ambivalent who is the last samurai—
Katsumoto, Nathan, or both—it is clear that Algren’s memoirs and his
voice will become the legitimate history of the last samurai clan. The end
of the film implies that Algren will come back to the small Japanese
village where his new Japanese lover Taka and her children are waiting for
him. Algren gets the exotic Asian female and kids and simultaneously
becomes the last legitimate heir of the great Japanese tradition. In other
words, his aversion to guns and ensuring mastery of samurai swords is a
device to make him the legitimate last samurai.

Orientalism and Zen Cliché

The Last Samurai seems to present many positive images of traditional

Japanese society and culture. Samurai society is portrayed as something
noble, honorable, and more civilized than modern American society,
which is depicted as a corrupt imperialist power that devastates the
world with its profiteering adventurism and destructive war machines.
The Indian Wars are highly criticized; particularly, the Black Hills
War, led by General George Armstrong Custer (1839 – 76), is vilified.
Furthermore, a samurai is represented as a disciplined and masculine
man who treasures honor, duty, loyalty, and principles. Given the his-
tory of an Asian man in Hollywood—as either threatening Yellow Peril
or an emasculated man—this is quite different from previous repre-
sentations. Katsumoto, played by Ken Watanabe, will arguably be
remembered as one of the most positive images of an Asian man in
Hollywood film history. Roughly based on the real figure Saigo
Takamori, one of the most influential and legendary samurai in Jap-
anese history who led the Satsuma Rebellion of 1887, Katsumoto is
portrayed as a curious and open-minded leader who is willing to learn
about Western culture and modernization. Inspired by the real history,
Making a Samurai Western 1073

writer-director Zwick created a strong samurai leader character Katsu-

moto, and Japanese actor Ken Watanabe accomplished an extraordinary
performance. As the news press puts it, ‘‘Watanabe has a charismatic,
formidable presence that makes him hard to resist’’ (Lemire). Literally,
Watanabe occupies the screen ‘‘physically and spiritually’’ (Mitchell),
and he is compared with a ‘‘latter-day Toshiro Mifune’’ (Kauffmann),
whose great performance as a samurai in many Akira Kurosawa films
made him the most memorable Japanese actor in Western minds.
While there is something noble and great in Watanabe’s perfor-
mance, his role as Katsumoto is, however, not far from the stereotypical
representation of an Asian leader as ‘‘a man of Eastern wisdom.’’ He
orders his newly widowed sister Taka (Koyuki) to take care of injured
Algren, who just killed her husband in the battle. ‘‘That was good
death,’’ says Katsumoto to Algren, who is puzzled by his intention to
let him be cared for by his sister. Both Algren and Taka do not un-
derstand what Katsumoto thinks inside. But Taka believes that Katsu-
moto is always right so she obeys his order. Besides, he wants to teach
Algren to be a samurai against other Japanese samurais’ wills. In short,
Katsumoto is an inscrutable yet wise Asian man who speaks hard-
to-get ‘‘fortune cookie wisdom.’’
Notwithstanding characters, The Last Samurai is based on the Ori-
entalist cliché of Zen. Although traditional Japan is not portrayed as
backward or inferior, the film projects the prototypical image of Japan as
‘‘Zen country,’’ although Zen is scarcely mainstream Japanese culture
(Tadao ‘‘Popular Culture’’ 244). William Kelly points out that one of
the seven deadly clichés regarding Japanese national character in
the Western imagination is ‘‘Zen aesthetes,’’ which portray Japan as the
mysterious exotic East—a reservoir of nature, purity, calmness, spiri-
tuality, and refined sensibilities (‘‘Japan’’). The Last Samurai reiterates
this Zen stereotype.
Before Algren goes to Japan, he is a pathetic, self-hating, alcoholic
loser who makes a living on a gun performance. He suffers from the
traumatic memory of his army slaughtering Native Americans. He is
haunted by the recurring images of innocent Native American women
and children being killed. Through his nightmare sequence, the film
portrays the American War against the Native Americans as an evil war
without honor or moral code.
However, when Algren is captured by samurai enemies the door for
spiritual salvation is wide open. Impressed by the dream of a white
1074 Mina Shin

tiger (symbolizing Algren) and the unrefined warrior quality of Algren

himself, Katsumoto keeps Algren alive to learn about the enemy.
There, Algren is spiritually reborn in ‘‘Japan Spa,’’ a small traditional
Japanese village where innocent native Japanese people take care of him
and gradually accept him as a friend. Zen and samurai Bushido, the
peaceful but powerful Eastern ways of life detoxicate Algren from his
longtime nightmares of the West. As John Dunbar in Dances with
Wolves writes a memoir to describe how he discovers spirituality in
Western wilderness, Algren writes his memoir, ‘‘There is something
spiritual in this place.’’ Algren finally falls into a deep sleep: ‘‘Here I
have known my first untroubled sleep in many years.’’
In Orientalism, the Orient is believed to have the spiritual mystic
power to cure the West, because the West has lost the ability to heal
itself. Losing innocence is a price the West paid in the process of
modernization and civilization. While the Orient is the object of con-
quest, its spirituality should be preserved so the West can come back
whenever it misses and needs its spiritual Other. This spiritual Orient
is, in fact, a mirror image of the West itself—the lost, innocent self.
The Orient exists for the West for whatever purposes: in this case, for
personal healing. This is one of the basic tenets of Orientalism, and The
Last Samurai faithfully follows its logic.
The ending of The Last Samurai further develops Orientalism. After
the battle ends with the demise of samurai class, Algren delivers the
sword of the dead Katsumoto to the Meiji emperor. He reminds the
emperor that Japan had a great tradition that should not be forgotten.
Moved by Algren’s speech, the emperor ends his pro-Western mod-
ernization policies on the spot. The emperor, portrayed as a powerless
puppet during the whole movie, suddenly finds his authority. This
ending is another cliché of the West enlightening the East. The film is
a ‘‘patronizing narrative of a white man teaching the rapidly modern-
izing Japanese how to honor the past’’ (Rich), and ‘‘how to be Japanese’’
(Klawans).

The Politics of Nostalgia

While the film portrays Japan as an Oriental Other under the pro-
tection of white paternalism, it also depicts Japan as a ‘‘masculine’’
modern nation that successfully attained modern militarization like the
Making a Samurai Western 1075

United States. The film juxtaposes stories of militarization between

two countries that eventually led them to become two powerful
imperialists in the world. This Hollywood portrayal of masculine
Japan contrasts with that of the Occupation period in which imperial
Japan was imagined as emasculated and feminized. Mari Yoshihara
points out the way Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,
a postwar study on Japanese national character, feminized Japan’s
most masculinist ideology of imperialism and the military system
of samurai (172). Imagining Japan as a feminine Other was not new
at that time, but Yoshihara notes that Benedict’s text was different
from earlier approaches because it portrayed Japan feminine ‘‘not by
looking at Japanese women’s lives, but by looking at the masculine’’
(178 – 79). Given that the American imagination of Japan as a
feminized Other still lingers in Hollywood as shown in films such
as Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) the portrait of Japan as masculine
war hero armed with spirituality in The Last Samurai is noteworthy.
In his book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire,
Chalmers Johnson explores the important role of Japan in the building
of the US military empire. He argues that the emergence of the
United States as a military empire is based on its military station in
Okinawa. America’s two major wars against Asian communism—
the Korean War and the Vietnam War—could not have been fought
without bases in Japan (39). Likewise, Japan’s economic recovery
from World War II benefited from the United States engagement
in those wars in Asia. Such a close militant relationship is one of
the backgrounds from which the portrayal of Japan as masculine war
hero comes.
Further, I argue that Hollywood’s glorification of Japanese milita-
rism cannot be separated from military politics under the Bush
administration, in which ‘‘the United States has been doing everything
in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament,’’
as Chalmers Johnson puts it (‘‘No Longer the ‘Lone’ Superpower’’).
Johnson argues that China’s emergence in world politics and economy
threatens the Japanese-American cooperative bloc in which the United
States has urged Japan to rearm in order to checkmate North Korea
and to balance China. Japan’s remilitarization was greatly accelerated
in 2001 by the simultaneous coming to power of George W. Bush
and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, and one of their elaborate
plans for military cooperation is to revise article nine of Japan’s
1076 Mina Shin

Constitution, which renounces the use of force except as a matter of

self-defense. What is ironic is that it was during its Occupation that
the United States constituted the laws that prohibited Japan from
future remilitarization (Miyoshi and Harootunian 2). Now the United
States desperately seeks the remilitarization of Japan.
Notwithstanding possible future conflict with China, the United
States needed Japan’s remilitarization because of the Iraq War. During
the Gulf War, Japan could only make a contribution of ten billion
dollars for war expenses (Miyoshi and Harootunian 2). But in today’s
Iraq War, Japan has finally sent troops to support the United States.
According to CNN News, the Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi said, ‘‘America has made many sacrifices to create a viable
democracy in Iraq. Japan must be a trustworthy ally for the United
States’’ (‘‘Japan to Send Troops in Iraq’’). Such involvement is consid-
ered ‘‘Japan’s most controversial and riskiest military venture since
World War II’’ (‘‘Japan Troops’’). If America’s wish is to turn Japan into
the ‘‘Britain of the Far East,’’ as Washington neo-conservatives quoted
in Johnson’s article (‘‘No Longer’’), it would not be wrong to see the
celebration of Japanese ancient militarism in The Last Samurai as a
reflection of America’s desire for a strong allied force in contemporary
world politics. The narrative that a white samurai fights in an hon-
orable war and gains a strong military spirit also reflects the American
soldiers’ wish for an honorable war and strong military spirit. On
December 13, 2003, The Los Angles Times published an article
headlined ‘‘Marines recognize aloof ‘Samurai’’’ which discusses how
the US Marines perceived the film The Last Samurai (Perry). Strikingly,
not only did the article compare the US Marines to the samurai but
also soldiers who were interviewed identified themselves with the
samurai in the film.

Like the samurai, the Marine Corps is dedicated to protecting a

society but remains aloof from that society. In an age when hedo-
nism is the rule, the true warrior remained uncorrupted. ‘‘It’s the
warrior ethos, the combat mind-set,’’ Said Sgt. Jack Carrillo,
who served in Iraq. ‘‘The samurais had it, the Marines have it.’’ The
samurais were a small, closed group. The Marine Corps is
the smallest of the military services and prides itself on having the
toughest training regimen . . . ‘‘The samurais refused to abandon
their historical ways even though they knew they were going to
lose,’’ Carrillo said. ‘‘That’s what the Marine do for you, teach you
Making a Samurai Western 1077

tradition. We’re like samurais, we’re usually outnumbered but we

don’t quit.’’

It is not surprising that the US Marine officers identify themselves

with samurai because, among the Armed Forces of the United States,
the Marines is the only military unit that carries swords like a samurai.
Originated from Mameluke warriors of North Africa, Marine swords
are now used only for ceremonial purposes. However, they still carry
the important symbolic meaning of American military tradition to the
Marines. Sharing the same icon or symbol, ancient Japanese warriors
become role models for the US Marines. In his review of The Last
Samurai in Maclean’s, Brian D. Johnson eloquently captures how US
Marine officers would feel, ‘‘We’re being conscripted into America’s
nostalgic search for an honorable war.’’ It becomes obvious that ro-
manticization and glorification of the ancient militarism in The Last
Samurai resonates with the moment of the Iraq War during the Bush
administration.

Conclusion

By combining the Western with a samurai genre, The Last Samurai best
demonstrates how Asian cultures can be appropriated to reinvigorate
the dead genre Western and revive American ideologies. The Western
is considered ‘‘a most American genre’’ (Turner and Higgs xviii), be-
cause its iconography and mythology is steeped in American history.
The myths of the Great Wild West and frontiersmanship in the nine-
teenth century formed America’s national identity as a country of
freedom, adventure, and challenge. The ideology that the conquest of
wilderness through westward movement was a divine mission to bring
democracy and civilization to savages, and that whites were destined to
perform this task, served to justify American expansionism. However,
as the United States experienced its national identity crisis in the late
1960s and early 1970s through the events of the Civil Rights Move-
ment and anti-Vietnam War protest, the Western faced a rapid decline.
There have been several attempts to revitalize the genre, which turns
out less successful. The philosophical and spiritual elements of samurai
Bushido seemed to fill the void of Western ideologies and recover the
tainted morality of white violence. Although The Last Samurai seems
to depict Asian cultures positively and treat racial minorities
1078 Mina Shin

sympathetically, it uses spiritual aspects of samurai Bushido to justify

white uses of violence. It implies that the white violence in American
warfare was the honorable and inevitable choice for bringing civili-
zation and democracy to the world. Through an American character
who trespasses freely between American and minority cultures, a sam-
urai Western The Last Samurai revives the myth of the Wild West and
American ideology Manifest Destiny.

Note
1. Compare The Last Samurai with the Japanese production Twilight Samurai (2003) released in
the same year, starring Hiroyuki Sanada as a protagonist Seibei Iguchi who also acted in The
Last Samurai as one of the heroic samurai soldiers. Set in the same period of the Meiji
Restoration and the ensuing rapid modernization, the two films present sharply opposite
perspectives regarding the role of the samurai in the changing Japanese society. Although
Twilight Samurai also underlines the nobility of the samurai the film presents Seibei Iguchi as
an ordinary low-class samurai who does not have any ambition to succeed or to preserve the
value of Bushido. Rather, he is portrayed as a widowed family man whose priority is how to
help his family survive against the starvation of the times. The majority of the film depicts the
sufferings of a low-class samurai in the era of the demise of the samurai class—even his love
interest is conditioned by his class status and poverty. The film is narrated by Seibei’s daughter
and tells the story that Seibei Iguchi died in the Boshin War where he fought with the rebels
against the Emperor’s government, the same war depicted in The Last Samurai. But there is no
glorious battle sequence in Twilight Samurai as in The Last Samurai. The fight sequence in
Twilight Samurai only shows the tedious process of how the samurai fights and dies due to the
gradual loss of the blood. Director Yoji Yamada emphasizes that samurai sword fighting does
not actually lead to the instant glorious or honorable death. In fact, in the battle, a samurai
dies because of loss of blood, and his life gradually ebbs away. Overall, the director intended to
make a realistic period drama without glorifying samurai culture. In contrast, The Last Samurai
is a blockbuster epic that highly glorifies and romanticizes the code of samurai.

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Mina Shin received her PhD in Critical Studies from the School of Cinematic
Arts at the University of Southern California. She is currently visiting
assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University where she teaches
courses in Film Studies, Global Studies, and East Asian Studies.