Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Posts made in January, 2012
Who Was the Last Samurai?
“Why is the last samurai a white guy?” my son Sho asked me. His younger brother Gen added, “Yeah, it’s weird.” We had just seen the film in which a captured American soldier lives among samurai, learns their ways, and joins them in battle. Tom Cruise’s character was a little uncomfortable when he first tried on Japanese clothes, but after a while he felt fine. At the beginning, I thought he looked a little weird too, but by the end of the film, he looked cool in the red samurai armor. But something seemed wrong to my kids. “You see, it’s a Hollywood film, so they have to have a white guy for the hero,” I explained to them. It sells better that way....
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