Woman 'too brown' for Hobbit role

[Beorn]

The Last Samurai combines real but disconnected historical situations, rather distant in time, into a single narrative. It also replaces the key Western actors of the period (especially the French) with American ones. Finally, it portrays a radical conflict between ancient and modern fighting methods, but in reality all sides of the conflict (the Satsuma Rebellion, and before it the Boshin War) adopted modern equipment to various degrees. Indeed, firearms had been in use centuries earlier in Japan and played an important part in the civil wars that created the Tokugawa shogunate, but were later rejected as dishonorable and by the early 19th century the gunsmith's art had fallen into disuse. Many thematic, and visual elements of the film parallel the films of Akira Kurosawa, specifically Seven Samurai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Las...cal_background

A good film. I enjoyed it.

[Schubert]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Las...cal_background

A good film. I enjoyed it.

too bad cruise is a scientology guy.. about the paki, well done audition jury

[Lurker]

or that the second Conan film had a disproportionate amount of blackness in it.

But Conan did adventure a lot in non-white lands, and he basically meets only blacks (and one white woman) in "Jewels of Gwahlur" and "Queen of the Black Coast". Again he meets only one white woman and several dark Native American-like people in "Red Nails".

Actually, lots of Conan adventures are set in no-white lands and, besides Tarzan and the Ghost, he's probably the fictional hero that spends the most time with blacks and non-whites. To sum up, I don't think Conan spending time with blacks or non-whites is out of character for him. But in the books, Robert E. Howard makes certain that we see that he has a low opinion of non-whites in general (and of civilized white men as well).

[Lurker]

Right. And whites themselves are the first ones to point out how ridiculous such a movie like The Last Samurai is as opposed to nonwhites who try to break open the doors to get into the whites only world. Almost every white person I know hates on honky playing samurai. I actually already commented about The Last Samurai in this thread because I figured it would come up. I hated the film. But at least there was context (an era of European encroachment within Japan) to explain Cruise. I think the film was trying to be ironic (a white guy is the last samurai!) while at the same time the producers probably were looking for a way to use a big name star (not too many of them are Asian men, unfortunately) in a samurai movie.

I thought Ken Watanabe was the last samurai, since he was the leader of the revolt against the Meiji government and fought with a katana against rifles. But I think the movie leaves it open to interpretation who exactly is the last samurai of the title.

[Debaser11]

I thought Ken Watanabe was the last samurai, since he was the leader of the revolt against the Meiji government and fought with a katana against rifles. But I think the movie leaves it open to interpretation who exactly is the last samurai of the title.

I think you're right on in each of your posts.