Caught The Last Samurai on HBO earlier. I remember scoffing when I first saw the movie back in 2003. Really? Tom Cruise was the last samurai? What a joke. It’s not a diss on the entire movie, mind you. I actually love it. It’s just the ending is a little hard to accept. Out of all the thousand battle-hardened samurais that participated in the battle, it’s the gaijin who gets to live and returns to the village. But with that aside, I really can’t think of anything I didn’t like about the movie. For me the best part was during his captivity in the village. It showed how the rural folks lived and its just breathtaking. It sorta makes me want to go to Japan and live as a peasant so I can experience all those things.

I wasn’t rooting for the samurais 100% in this movie, even if they were painted as the last remaining patriots of Japan. Sure, some of them are against foreign powers taking advantage of their nation, which is something I can agree with. But there’s also the fact that probably a lot of them are fighting to retain the natural order of things. Just to back up a bit, Japan has a caste system in their society but not as extreme as India. Peasants are on the lowest rung while samurai are on top of them. Not the highest in the order but high enough to lord it over the peasants. And like every time in history where there is a ruling and servant caste, abuse and maltreatment aren’t far behind.

So going back to the movie, yes it was a shame that the time of the samurai was at an end. But you can bet some of the conscripted soldiers gunning them down felt like a lifetime of abuse has finally been paid back in kind. Samurai leader Katsumoto speaks of karma several times in the movie and is perfectly fine in accepting whatever is his fate. What if the fate of the samurais was to be eradicated so that a new and stronger Japan can be born from the ashes?