You still can...they are called 'Chūshingura' .
'The Loyal 47 Ronin' is one version you can watch for free with subtitles, it can be found on YT in 2 parts, part one is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE9lG7G6t4E

Many are just named 'Chūshingura', including the most famous one, made in 1962 named "Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki" There are many versions. None of the Japanese made versions have dragons or witches, as far as I know. I'm almost certain they are ALL better than "47 Ronin", but I haven't seen them all...I just know it's true.

Agreed. I scrolled it so I didn't have to see the video and just listened to the audio and read the subtitles. If it's not an irritating presenter then it's a video full of hyper-rebus over-edited visuals. Or sometimes a mixture of both.

This thing needs english subtitles!

BTW this has to be the saddest stage and lighting I have ever seen for a PV. They got the good camera angles, and an editor who knows his shiat, but those lights...I have seen better in highschools! And almost no time spent on the routine.

No English subtitles?

Those subtitles are super helpful

"Automatically ok"? Not necessarily. But in cases where it makes sense, at a stretch even "plot sense" for the character to be there; yeah, I think that is OK.

The Last Samurai isn't a documentary. But, the general historical justification for Tom Cruise's character being in Japan is pretty much valid. Meiji was interested in the West -- clothes, technology, weapons, and military. He actually did hire Westerners to train his army, although from what I read it sounds like they were German, French, and Italian rather than American. Still, the movie portrays the general situation/setting with at least *decent* broad-strokes historical accuracy. LOADS of movies deviate from even this degree of historical accuracy *way* more without drawing complaints; particularly if their main purpose is entertainment and not education / documentary.


Your hypothetical reverse movie makes some valid criticisms. Even though it would have been historically possible for a Westerner to be in Japan at the time -- even to be involved with training a Western-style military -- it would be unlikely for such a person to get captured, run into a Shogun that speaks English, become a badass (or at least passable) samurai warrior, and end up playing a major role in politics and significantly influencing Emperor Meiji.

My defense against those criticisms is that, for me at least, the movie is entertaining; which is kinda the point. Your "Union Samurai" movie might be equally entertaining and therefore given an equal pass on historical inaccuracies by me.

The whole characters as a "lens through which the audience can appreciate a culture/history outside their own" issue is (slightly) more weighty to me. I don't think those are often necessary, but I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted if the movie maker feels that they are in order to sell tickets.

I love the Chinese historical novel "Three Kingdoms". A few years ago, John Wu made the movie "Red Cliff", mostly about one particular battle in the historical period portrayed in that book. For the Chinese audience, Wu made the movie in two parts, summed up about four and a half hours long. For the US / West, he made a version trimmed to just over two hours. Why? Because he (and a team of market researchers, I'm sure) knew that very few Westerners would go to see a 4+ hour long movie, entirely in Mandarin Chinese (with subtitles), about a piece of Chinese history from ~1800 years ago that very few in the West have ever heard of or know anything about.

I think the full 4+ hour long movie is great. In my personal top 10 favorite movies of all time, ahead of most Hollywood stuff. But I also understand that there's no way that movie would appeal to all but a tiny, tiny fraction of Western viewers in that full-on 4+ hour format. But, even though I personally think the cut-down 2 hour "US" version is drastically inferior to the full cut, I am glad that he made it because it gives a suitably accurate introduction to the subject matter to more people in the West (just like the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Dynasty Warriors" videogames do), and makes that tiny, tiny fraction of Western people that know anything about it a little less tiny. While being entertaining along the way.

For other movies, sometimes the best way that a filmmaker can sell a movie to an audience that otherwise might not accept it (at least in large enough numbers to justify the production costs) may be to insert one of these "lens" characters for the audience to identify with. I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with that. It might not work for movies that are taking a more hardline approach to historical / contextual accuracy (ie., if Tom Cruise showed up in "Red Cliff" in circa 200AD China), but outside of those situations, if that is what the studio thinks it will take to sell tickets... Cool.

The Last Samurai is, like @ChaosEngine said, a movie primarily about an outsider learning a new culture (and accepting his own past). He serves as that lens character, but actually the hows and whys of his character arc are the main points of interest in the movie, at least to me.

I'm sure that an awesome, historically accurate movie could be made dealing with young Emperor Meiji, Takamori (who Katsumoto seems to be based on in The Last Samurai), and the influence of modernization on Japanese culture at the time. It could be made with no Western "lens" character, no overt influence by any particular individual Westerner, and be entirely in Japanese. But that movie wouldn't be The Last Samurai, wouldn't be attempting to serve the same purpose as The Last Samurai, and very likely wouldn't sell as many tickets (in the US) as The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise!) did. That wouldn't make it a worse movie, just an apple instead of an orange.

OMFG.

I can't believe I didn't even notice they were speaking English.

Yeah, I'd prefer to hear it in Cantonese (or Mandarin) and read subtitles, but it's made in America for an American network with an audience whose vast majority despises subtitles.

Don't like the theme overall: "This magic sword gives you the power to conquer all!" Nah. But of course I still really want to see it (though not enough to subscribe to Netflix again).

I imagine the driver of the pickup coming the opposite way at the end being all like "you best turn around" and camera car driver being all like "no *you* best turn around" and the camera pulls up and slowly reveals them both to be on a rapidly shrinking island of land as the water washes in around them. pull back to clouds. pull back to earth from space with unrecognisable shrinking continents. movie title: ominous subtitle. Summer 2016.

Your video, Gentle Norwegian Bodybuilders [English subtitles], has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

MH17 Crash - Dutch Safety Board Investigation Result has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

*related http://videosift.com/video/MH17-Crash-Russian-Subtitles

"Do you know gas go boom?" That's my favorite subtitle for this video.

Needs subtitles. Conversational Scottish is hard enough to understand, never mind this garbled microphone version.

Seriously confusing, if they are going to dub over their voices why not actually do it in Mandarin so they wouldn't need the subtitles?