Tokyo, Aug 28: Superstar Tom Cruise unveiled here today some clips of his latest film "The Last Samurai", which portrays Japan as a nation in an historic struggle to maintain its warrior traditions. The actor, together with director Edward Zwick and the Japanese cast, explored Bushido, the Samurai code, in the first post-production promotion worldwide of the fictional tale, set in 1870s Japan.
"That is the reason that I really wanted to make this film, because of Bushido, the code of the samurai," said Cruise, still sporting the beard of his character captain Nathan Algren in case any reshooting was needed.
"I strongly identify with those values: honour, loyalty, compassion," he said. "Those are wonderful things to aspire to in a life and those are the things that I strongly identify with."
In the clips, Algren, an American civil war veteran hired by the emperor to modernise the Japanese army, falls captive after a valiant battle against his Samurai foes.
Finding himself trapped in a Samurai village, he learns the Bushido code, falls in love with the woman whose husband he killed, and then comes to join the Samurai in a final epic battle against the emperor.
"This film describes a moment in Japanese history when the world was changing and when many things were conspiring to try to have people pulled away from that spirit of Bushido," director Zwick told a news conference.
"It asks the question: can that spirit be held onto in the modern age?"
Bureau Report