Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 44, A review of The Last Samurai.

First, before we get started, just a quick update on the advertising situation.

I've been in conversation with my hosting service, and I'm currently trying to set up ads

for the show.

As a part of that, they'd like me to perform a demographic survey

of my audience. I've put a link to the survey, which should take you no more than five minutes,

on both the Facebook and WordPress pages. Please take the time to fill it out, since it will

make it much easier for me to get advertising down the line. Please rest assured that I have not signed anything yet, and that any ads that appear in the show

still have to go through me.

I still have the final call on everything.

With that in mind, let's get started.

I've been debating what my second review episode should be for some time now.

Originally, I had planned to do the new 47 Ronin movie,

before I realized that I probably couldn't get 20 minutes worth of mileage

out of just screaming, why, God, why, into the microphone over and over again.

So instead, I think we're going to take a look at the 2003 film, The Last Samurai,

starring Ken Watanabe and, for some incomprehensible reason, Tom Cruise.

A quick refresher, if you haven't seen the movie.

The movie features the adventures of an American military officer named Nathan Algren,

who is hired by the Meiji Japanese government

to help train the Imperial Army. During the course of his duties, he is captured by conservative

samurai rebels, led by a man named Katsumoto, who teaches him about the honorable ways of the samurai,

...