Like Cruise, Watanabe trained intensely and performed a majority of his own stunts. "Katsumoto always carries two swords," he says, "so I had to learn how to use them simultaneously. We wanted everything to feel real, including the fights. It was tough, but the motivation was strong. Before shooting each battle scene I had to yell to more than 500 soldiers. I yelled so many times that I lost my voice."
"It was a complex role and Ken delivered a performance of deep emotionality, humor and great poise," Zwick responds. "I cannot imagine the movie without him."
As a counterpoint to the film’s extraordinary action sequences, The Last Samurai offers a number of deceptively quiet scenes. In his early days as Katsumoto’s prisoner in the Samurai village, in his silent but intense exchanges with Katsumoto and the other Samurai, Algren is forced to communicate without dialogue in circumstances where words are impossible – and ultimately unnecessary.
As Zwick points out, the absence of meaningful dialogue does not diminish the depth of these encounters. "The scenes in which Algren is getting to know Taka, this woman who looks after him every day and doesn’t say a word, are very powerful. Here are two people forced to be in each other’s lives and yet there are barriers between them – the circumstances, the natural restraint given the difference in cultures, and of course, the language. There are so many obstacles to their connection, yet they connect. It’s really a delight for me to see how much Koyuki is able to convey in her look, her gestures and her bearing, and how much Algren understands. It’s almost like a silent movie performance."
The director’s commitment to explore his characters’ inner drama is perhaps best described by his early advice to Watanabe in a scene where they were trying to "get inside of Katsumoto’s mind," as the actor recalls. "Before shooting, Ed said to me, ‘You have to feel everything – the campfire, the sound of insects, wind, temperature. It’s a cold night. Hear the horses stirring. Tom’s breathing.’ And all of this for a scene in which I had no dialogue. In a way, it was more like direction for living than for acting, which is a good example of Bushido spirit. Bushido is like breathing, being aware of our connection to nature and to everything. The Samurai don’t talk about it, they simply live it."
Indeed, Zwick’s own work on the picture often crossed into the realm of a silent movie performance as he sought to convey direction across an ever-present language barrier while filming in Japan and later in New Zealand with hundreds of Japanese cast and extras. "When you look at the scope of the film, and think about how every single performance is important, every single moment is important to the whole, you’re amazed," says Cruise, "at Ed’s ability to communicate effectively as a director to people who might not speak any English at all and still get the performances he wanted."
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