At 5:30 a.m. on August 28th, Tom Cruise and his party arrived at Tokyo Haneda Airport by his private jet. Surprisingly, there were fans waiting there. Some had been waiting there since the night before yesterday. Tom was in Japan. The appeal of this can be seen here.
The press conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Roppongi, Tokyo, where more than 700 journalists from around the world gathered, and Tom Cruise himself was said to be in Japan for the first time for two media meetings for the same film. The reporter has participated in two press conferences of his and John Woo's "Mission Impossible II" and Spielberg's "Minority Report" before, but they are not as large as this time. In fact, it is normal, because the background of the story of this film is the end of the era in Japanese history.
"SAMURAI" in Japanese means "servant", that is, samurai. "Servants" are loyal to their masters. This master can be an individual, or some kind of ideological belief. In short, he wants the "servant" to give up his self, but find his "self" in this obedience. For example, the samurai played by Tom Cruise, after experiencing the baptism of the Civil War and the Indian War, became decadent, but found in a distant Japan what he was loyal to and willing to give his life for, that is the samurai spirit.
Due to time constraints, Tom Cruise and director Edward Zwick did not stay for too long, but only introduced four movie clips, and then answered together with the three main Japanese actors, Watanabe Ken, Sanada Hiroyuki, and Koyuki. A few questions, and then hurried away. At the press conference, Tom Cruise appeared in a very good mood, constantly combing his long hair with his fingers. But when Xiaoxue took the stage, Zwick went up to kiss the back of her hand, while Tom Cruise "cautiously" only shook her hand.
Among the three or four questions raised by reporters from various countries, almost all of them involved Japan's "BUSHIDO". In particular, AFP reporters asked why they chose this topic as an American. Tom Cruise and Edward Zwick both sang praises for the "Bushido" spirit, saying that they have always admired traditional Japanese culture and samurai spirit, and they have studied a lot of related materials for this film. Tom Cruise says he can talk for hours on the subject now and hopes that today's youth will embrace the traditional samurai virtues of honesty, loyalty, and helpfulness. Although these rhetoric are polite in Japan, Japanese Bushido does have a relatively large influence in the West. The Japanese pronunciation of some proper nouns (harakiri) has become an English vocabulary, and Kurosawa's samurai movies are also for it Played a huge rendering effect. The reason is that, on the one hand, Japan is backed by its financial resources and spares no effort in foreign cultural propaganda; on the other hand, the Japanese army armed with "Bushido" ideology has performed wildly in previous wars, and has also been widely respected by its opponents.
Tom Cruise has always been known as a hero of modern action movies, and this time he switched to sword is also a topic of interest to the media. Tom Cruise said that in order to learn Japanese swordsmanship, he received special training for up to eight months, and gained 20 pounds through physical training. At present, he has mastered Japanese swordsmanship, which is characterized by two-handed swords, as well as the skill of using both swords together, and has improved his riding skills. He said that while watching the demo, he was satisfied with his fighting and Japanese. He joked that it was Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada who gave him a lot of guidance, and that if the audience felt that he did not perform well, Watanabe and Sanada were to blame. Watanabe Ken and Sanada Hiroyuki highly praised Tom's professionalism, saying that he was exhausted and still persevering. Sanada even said that "this is the spirit of Bushido".
The investment of the film is about 130 million US dollars, and its important expenditure is that a 200-meter-long Edo street in the 1870s is reconstructed in Los Angeles, in order to achieve realism, almost everything is done. During the development of the film, in order to reflect the gradual infiltration of modern civilization, the entire street has been constantly modified, if it conforms to the subtle changes in historical development. Japanese actors expressed shock at such a large-scale project in Hollywood, and Sanada also said that it made Japanese filmmakers feel ashamed.
Director Edward Zwick believes that this film is actually a description of the collision of two worlds, two eras, and two cultures in a specific space, thus producing various tests of human nature. As far as the film is concerned, the conflict between different cultures is mainly manifested between cold weapons and firearms, between the old samurai morality and imported Western values, and the most important thing is how a person adapts to changes in the environment. It can be said that the essence of "The Last Samurai" is very similar to "Dances with Wolves", almost the "Oriental version" of the latter, but the Indians are replaced by the more exotic and civilized Japanese. "Dances with Wolves" has become a classic western epic, but it's hard to say how high "The Last Samurai" will reach.
Japan's end of the era is like China's late Qing Dynasty. It was a period of historical changes. In particular, Japan successfully achieved a leap into a modern power, so it was called "exciting and beautiful era". Not only Hollywood is interested in this, but the Japanese filmed the commercial comedy "When the East Meets the West" as early as 1990, which also starred Sanada Hiroyuki. The film tells the story of some Japanese samurai envoys going through the desolate west to visit the U.S. government. There are all kinds of thrilling or funny stories along the way. The director said, "It's a tribute to Ford's "Flying Off the Mountains". More than ten years later, Tom Cruise is "When the West meets the East", it is said that his ambition is to aim at Oscar.
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