Word: samurais
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...dusted-off doctoral thesis. But as a storehouse of facts about a history too little known, his book is fascinating. In the 17th century, he tells us, the Burmese capital of Mrauk-U was seen as a "second Venice" for its rivers as well as its mix of Japanese samurai, Islamic customs and Portuguese priests. To this day the highlands around the Irrawaddy Valley, crowded with minority groups, are "one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world." And as late as 1927, more immigrants streamed into Rangoon than into New York City. "For many Indian families," as Thant...
...Watanabe is becoming something of a patron saint of cinematic lost causes. In The Last Samurai, the Japanese actor played the title role as a doomed warrior with nothing left but his honor. He's at it again in his new film, this time as a World War II Japanese officer mounting a last stand against American troops in the critically acclaimed Letters From Iwo Jima. Watanabe, 47, spoke with Time's Michiko Toyama about his role, what it was like working with director Clint Eastwood, and the challenges of being true to the horrors...
...There was criticism that Hollywood made a number of cultural errors in The Last Samurai. Is Iwo Jima truer to the Japanese spirit? I think so. The Last Samurai is a fiction. But with this film we were very thorough when it came to the historical facts. We paid attention to the smallest detail...
...kamikazes—much like Islamist suicide bombers—were fed a false account of their own cultural heritage. They were told that the samurai code, “bushido,” required self-sacrifice rather than surrender. But the Japanese military’s mantra repeated a fabricated history—according to Thomas, “many ancient Japanese warriors had been prisoners of war.” The scholarly Admiral Kurita penetrated through the “bushido” ruse. Too many of his countrymen...
...resourceful actor, and such a magnetic movie presence, that he can persuasively slip into the character of Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler from Zimbabwe who's on the trail of a rock the size of Kilimanjaro. Blood Diamond, the fitfully engrossing drama from director Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai), links Danny with the diamond's discoverer, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou, ever noble), whose family has been seized in the brutal 1990s Sierra Leone civil war and sent to a refugee camp...