There was so much symbolism...

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2003)

I found this movie to be incredible. There was so much symbolism that if you knew what you were looking for it was just facenating to study. The film portrayed the samurai code, called bushido, very well. I don't care if it does follow some of the plot lines from other movies. I went into it saying that "If i start laughing at how rediculous something was I am sorry." but that is not how I came out of it.
The use of the tiger, and the cherry blossoms, and how they recreated sepuku in a way that showed how disgraceful a samurai found surrender and loss in battle. I admit that it could have gone into more detail about somethings, the Meiji Emperor's council for example.
When Katsumoto's son had his top knot cut off and swords taken from him you could just feel the emotion and disgrace that he and other samurai would have felt when the anti-samurai laws were put into place.
I am not sure exactly how much of the movie actually followed the Taisho Rebellion, but it did show some rather accurate pictures of the industrialization and modernization that were occurring at the time.

Once you get past the point of the movie being another American expansion is bad, type of movie you see that this happened and that the overall story may not be exact, but it is the details that make this movie worth seeing.