When Taka starts to undress for Capt. Algren there is a shot with her clothes slightly below her shoulders looking backwards over her shoulder. This is a homage to the Hishikawa Moronobu's ukiyo-e painting "backwards beauty"
Tom Cruise took no "up front" salary for this film.
Tom Cruise narrowly escaped potentially fatal injuries after a sword was swung within one inch of his neck while filming. He and his co-star Hiroyuki Sanada was acting out a sword fight scene when the incident happened. Sanada swung a sword at Cruise who was on an off-camera mechanical horse at the time. But the machine reportedly malfunctioned and failed to duck at the right moment. Sanada stopped the blade just one inch from his neck.
This movie marks the 100th score for composer Hans Zimmer.
The Japanese character that the Taka's younger son paints and gives to Algren is the character for "samurai".
Learning how to use the sword, speak Japanese, among many other things, Tom Cruise spent two years preparing for this movie.
The kanji characters that appear on the posters, often beneath the title, do not say "The Last Samurai." They say "bushido" ("the Knight's Way," i.e., Japanese chivalry).
This not only marks the first time Ken Watanabe starred in an American-made film, but it is also the first time he spoke English in a film.
Although the movie seems to imply that Japan's new army was trained by the Americans, in fact, it was the Prussian General Staff that assisted in the modernization of Japan's army.
The sword used in the film is the folded steel Orchid katana by Paul Chen.
While training the Japanese soldiers, Algren at one point orders one of his troops to load and fire his musket while shooting at him and yelling, "Faster!" in order to simulate the pressures of being under fire. Edward Zwick also directed Glory (1989), in which Matthew Broderick's character does the exact same thing to one of his troops.
Over 500 Japanese extras, trained for 10 days at the Clifton Rugby Grounds, in New Plymouth for the lead up to the filming.
First feature to use the new Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 film stock - the successor of the previous Vision 500T 5279. However, it was released later than Seabiscuit (2003) which uses the same film stock but at a later date.
The real-life counterpart to Katsumoto (played by 'Ken Watanabe' ) is Takamori Saigo, who led a samurai rebellion in 1877. As in the movie, Saigo ended up committing suicide in September 1877 after defeat in battle. The Emperor's attitude in the film toward Katsumoto's struggle and death reflects actual Japanese popular sentiment toward Saigo, who though defeated, was regarded as a hero; a statue of Saigo was erected shortly after his death, and can today be seen in Ueno, in northeast Tokyo.
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