User Reviews

This is a very interesting documentary dealing with the historical background surrounding Japanese Samurai. clearly intended to jump on the 'Last Samurai' band-wagon, it is actually a great insight in to the myths and facts around the Samurai Warriors. Featuring some extensive interview footage of a couple of experts (including a very enthusiastic British guy - Dr Turnbull?) and some interesting pictures and graphics, it's a fascinating look at Japanese culture & history. It also has some clips from a few of the great Samurai movies, but these are really secondary to the information presented by the experts in the course of the documentary.

Enlightening.

From being a long time Kurosawa fan, as well as seeing more recent 'samurai' films, I found this DVD a nice companion piece for the information it contains. It expands on the genesis and history of the samurai nicely, as well as putting the whole culture into political and socio-economic perspective. It's well put together, concise and covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time. It should do well with others who've seen the movies and want to know more about these warriors, as well as a possible learning/teaching tool in schools. Turnbull -- the authors' "expert" -- certainly knows his stuff, and from a simple internet search and the amount of material he's published on the subject, it's obvious he *is* a world-class scholar when it comes to the samurai.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Tom Cruise film "THE LAST SAMURAI" and was understandably interested to hear about this documentary companion piece. Utilizing the research and on-camera explanations by Dr. Stephen Turnbull, the world's foremost authority on the Samurai and Japanese warfare history, this program skillfully paints a portrait of an amazing warrior philosophy. Original Samurai photographs (from the late 1800's), are combined with art prints, contemporary footage and scenes from famous Hollywood "Samurai" movies to complete the vision of these disciplined and spiritual fighters. The program balances the delivery of factual content (ala "The History Channel") with action footage and re-enactments to deliver a fully engaging and entertaining show. I was a little disappointed at the 66-minutes running time not being as much as I would prefer... but the DVD bonus features deliver another 20-minutes of great material to make this program a fantastic value and imminently collectible.