The Way of the Warrior

The Japanese had a hard time letting go of feudalism. They took 500 years longer than Europeans to embrace the modern era.

Japanese reluctance had a lot to do with the samurai.

Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) is set in Japan’s Warring States Period (1467-1573).

During this lawless age of civil wars, farmers were routinely attacked and pillaged by roving bands of brigands. Samurai, many of whom worked on farms between military assignments, were in great demand as independent Japanese states constantly fought each other.

Samurai (“those who serve”) adhered to bushido (“way of the warrior”), a set of principles that included acceptance of death, self-discipline, loyalty, and moral behavior.

The samurai hired by farmers in Seven exude bushido. Battling against great odds, they lose five of their warriors, save the farmers and conclude that the farmers, not the samurai, are the winners.

During the Japanese Edo Period (1603-1868) samurai were at the top of the social hierarchy. Although paid by their masters in rice, they usually had to work at other jobs to survive. Yoji Yamada’s The Twilight Samurai (2002) occurs at the end of this period.

Twilight’s hero, a widower named Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada), gets a small rice allocation and works at a castle warehouse in order to support his two children and senile mother.

Seibei struggles mightily to do both his job and a woman’s household chores. His fellow workers call him “Twilight Seibei” because he always rushes home after work.

The title also refers to the fading of samurai tradition as Seibei unwillingly resurrects his combat skills in service to his lord.

Based on three short novels by Shuuhei Fujisawa, Twilight tells a love story but its real theme is the bushido principle of fulfilling obligations to those both above and below oneself.

At the end of Twilight Seibei’s daughter tells us that he died during the 1868-69 Boshin War, the last stand of Japan’s shogunate.

Just before that War, Japan’s government was divided between a relatively weak Emperor in Kyoto and a powerful shogun (highest military officer) in Edo.

The shogun believed Japan should engage in foreign trade and join the modern world economy. He and U.S. diplomat Townsend Harris negotiated an 1858 trade treaty that lopsidedly favored the more sophisticated Americans, thus setting off a huge power struggle within Japan.

Emperor Komei would not support the treaty. When he died and his 15-year-old son, Matsuhito, became Emperor in 1867, the shogun marched on Kyoto and lost to the Emperor’s better-equipped, but smaller army.

Samurai loyal to the triumphant young Emperor thought he would keep Japan closed and retain its feudal system. His counselors persuaded him to do the opposite.

In 1868 Matsushito abandoned feudalism, moved the capital to Edo (which he renamed Tokyo), and sent teams of Japanese to study Western institutions.

In Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai one of those teams procures a U.S. Civil War hero, Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), to train the Emperor’s army. After an initial ill-timed battle, Cruise is captured by a rebellious samurai, Katsumoto, and taken to the clan’s village. There Algren abandons his cynicism, acquired when General George Custer ordered him to shoot Native Americans.

He trains to be a samurai and adopts the bushido code of honor.

Last Samurai is loosely based on the life of a real samurai, Saigo Takamori, who opposed the Westernization of Japan. Katsumoto is fictitious.

The aristocratic Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) is a cultured man as well as a warrior. He reads Algren’s journal notes and speaks English. He writes poetry.

This emphasis on erudition and artistry is true to Japan’s samurai history.

The relation between Katsumoto and Algren follows the samurai tradition of “shudo,” the close bond between an accomplished samurai and his pupil.

Samurai believed that, when defeated in battle, a samurai must commit suicide (seppuku) by a sword to the abdomen and, if an honorable comrade could be found, simultaneous beheading.

The real “last samurai,” Takamori, died by seppuku in 1877 after being seriously injured in a fight between dissident samurai and the Emperor’s imperial army. In Last Samauri, when Katsumoto loses an amazing battle, he commits seppuku assisted by his shudo friend, Algren.

As Katsumoto falls on the field, the opposing troops fall to their knees in his honor, a scene that symbolizes Japan’s ongoing reverence for the samurai and bushido principles.

Note: Jonathan Hoffman caught me (see Letters to the Editor). Robert Mitchum was Cpl. Allison, USMC, in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. But Kirk Douglas was the guy with the cleft chin.