<Introduction>
I would like to introduce you famous movie. The movie is The Last Samurai.
This movie is one of the famous movie of samurai. This movie is very exciting. I like this movie very much. The Last Samurai is an action/drama film starring Tom Cruise. It was co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay based on a story by John Logan. It was released in the United States on December 5, 2003.The plot deals with American soldier Nathan Aldren (Tom Cruise) whose personal and emotional conflicts bring him into contact with samurai in the wake of the wake of the Meiji Restoration in the Empire of Japan between 1876 and 1877.
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Filmmakers
He(Director / Producer / Screenplay) began directing and acting in high school and trained as an apprentice at the Academy Festival in Lake Forest, Illinois. While studying literature at Harvard, he continued writing and directing for the theatre. Upon graduation, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship to study in Europe with some of the major innovative theatre companies.
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He(Producer / Screenplay) became interested in filmmaking while studying at Brandeis University, where he wrote a screenplay of Beowulf as his senior thesis in 1973.
After graduation he wrote, produced, and directed a short film entitled In Footsteps, which gained him acceptance to the American Film Institute in 1975, at which he earned an MFA in 1978.
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PAULA WAGNER (Producer) partnered with Tom Cruise to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993. Their first feature under the C/W banner was the worldwide box office sensation Mission: Impossible, in 1996. In 2000, they duplicated that success with the highly anticipated sequel, Mission: Impossible 2.
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Cast
TOM CRUISE (Captain Nathan Algren/ Producer) made his film debut in 1981 with the critically acclaimed film Taps and has subsequently experienced a distinguished and distinctive career.
He last starred as "pre-cog" specialist John Anderton in Steven Spielberg's futuristic thriller Minority Report, the latest ofãhis many intriguing, ground-breaking and diverse films. He has collaborated with some of the film industry's most respected directors and actors, including Barry Levinson and co-star Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Award-winning Rain Man; Martin Scorsese in The Color of Money, opposite Paul Newman; Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July; Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky; Ron Howard's Far and Away; Sydney Pollack's The Firm; and Neil
Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, to name just a few.
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KEN WATANABE
KEN WATANABE (Katsumoto) began his career on stage, with the Tokyo-based theater troupe Madoka. While working with Madoka, he was selected to portray the role of hero in the play Shimodani Mannen-cho Monogatari, directed by Yukio Ninagawa. His performance attracted critical and popular notice.
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HOROYUKI SANADA
HIROYUKI SANADA (Ujio) made his movie debut at the age of five. At 13, he began studying acting, Karate, horseback riding and Japanese traditional dance. After graduating from Nihon University College of Art, he appeared in the historic action film Shogun's Ninja, performing his own stunts, a feat that earned him acclaim. In 1984, his groundbreaking work in Mahjong Vagrant Life (Mahjong Horoki) boosted him to stardom.
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KOYUKI
KOYUKI (Taka), now one of Japan's major actresses, began her career as a model after responding to a contest in the magazine Non-No. Subsequently, she won an exclusive modeling contract with the magazine and became a professional model in 1997.After extensive exposure in magazines and fashion shows, she began her acting career in the TV drama Koi ha Aserazu (Let's Be Patient at Finding Romance), earning widespread acclaim, and went on to roles in other television dramas, such as Beautiful Life, Antique - Seiyo Kotto Yogashiten (European Antique Cake Shop), Tentai Kansoku (Cosmic Observation) and Kimi wa Petto (You are My Pet).
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Story
Captain Nathan Algren (TOM CRUISE) is a man adrift. The battles he once fought now seem distant and futile. Once he risked his life for honor and country, but, in the years since the Civil War, the world has changed. Pragmatism has replaced courage, self-interest has taken the place of sacrifice and honor is nowhere to be found - especially out West where his role in the Indian Campaigns ended in disillusionment and sorrow.Somewhere on the unforgiving plains near the banks of the Washita River, Algren lost his soul. A universe away, another soldier sees his way of life about to disintegrate. He is Katsumoto (KEN WATANABE), the last leader of an ancient line of warriors, the venerated Samurai, who dedicated their lives to serving emperor and country. Just as the modern way encroached upon the American West, cornering and condemning the Native American, it also engulfed traditional Japan. The telegraph lines and railroads that brought progress now threaten those values and codes by which the Samurai have lived and died for centuries.But Katsumoto will not go without a fight.The paths of these two warriors converge when the young Emperor of Japan, wooed by American interests who covet the growing Japanese market, hires Algren to train Japan's first modern, conscript army. But as the Emperor's advisors attempt to eradicate the Samurai in preparation for a more Westernized and trade-friendly government, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai. Their powerful convictions remind him of the man he once was.Thrust now into harsh and unfamiliar territory, with his life and perhaps more important, his soul, in the balance, the troubled American soldier finds himself at the center of a violent and epic struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his sense of honor to guide him.
posted by Rika Tanaka











Sandals were made from various sorts of material, including straw, hemp, and cotton thread. Clogs were generally associated with the lower classes (geisha, for instance, and kabuki actors are often depicted wearing geta) though samurai wore them from time to time. The Tale of the Heike, for instance, mentions that the powerful Taira Kiyomori wore clogs, though it was considered sufficiently unusual to find its way into puns composed by his rivals. Bearskin boots were at one time popular, especially with armor, but by the 16th Century had come to be considered archaic. 












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one's dignity. The samurai also needed self-control and stoicism to be fully honored. He showed no sign of pain or joy. He endured all within--no groans, no crying. He held a calmness of behavior and composure of the mind neither of which should be bothered by passion of any kind. He was a true and complete warrior.
Japanese feudal lord, who started the unification of the country, torn by wars between the rival daimyo of the so-called Sengoku (Warring State) period (1467-1568). Working from a modest family base in the province of Owari as lord of Nagoya Castle, he destroyed opposing clans in brilliant campaigns against superior forces, being the first daimyo general to adopt the newly imported Western muskets. He gradually gained control of the region round the capital Kyoto, which he took in 1568. Now opposed by a daimyo coalition and militant Buddhist sects, he brutally destroyed the latter, razing the great Tendai monastery of 





