10 Films With Glaring Historical Inaccuracies

Telling the bloody story of the Satsuma Rebellion, a samurai uprising against Japan's transformation from feudal society to an industrial powerhouse, The Last Samurai presents a more romanticised version of how events played out.

The film likely means well by trying to show what was lost in the fall of the samurai, and Tom Cruise actually plays a rather compelling character, but nonetheless, it portrays a romantic view of the rebellion that could only be seen from an outsider's point of view. This can be forgiven to some extent, as the film is told entirely from the perspective of a captured American soldier.

The samurai rebellion was centred around the loss of status and influence with the Japanese Emperor, after the United States forcibly opened up the country to industrialisation at the point of a large number of very big cannons. This broke the military dictatorship of the Shogun, who had enforced a period of complete isolation across Japan. As Japan became more westernised, the country underwent a monumental shift to accommodate a new industrial middle class, which made the samurai a bit miffed when they saw all their money drifting away.

As is seen in the film, Japan's new army thoroughly crushed the Satsuma Rebellion in spite of fierce resistance, and the final, doomed charge of the samurai (with Tom Cruise in tow) does have a historical basis. However, by that point in the battle, the leader of the rebellion had committed suicide in order to avoid being captured.