"Tom is a very physical actor," she notes, "and it was important for him to feel as comfortable as possible. The Civil War uniform posed no problem; it was already designed for fighting. As for the leather coat, we needed something that would allow him to travel from the Civil War through the Indian Campaign and then to Japan and that also suited his character and history. I specifically didn’t want one of those Custer-style jackets. What we ultimately ended up with was a deerskin, mahogany, very weathered and aged, as though it had survived a lot. The instant Tom put it on, it was hard to imagine him without it. The bonus, which we discovered when rehearsals began, is that it had great flexibility."
Dickson also dressed the Samurai for battle, staring with a trip to "Japanese armor houses and museums. We couldn’t hire Samurai armor because it would be destroyed during filming, which meant we would need to make it ourselves. We learned the intricate details of making real Samurai armor – how it was stitched and laced," she reveals, "and constructed the pieces in New Zealand."
The process of producing 250 sets of armor began by first assembling the many individual pieces. Jewelers were employed to fashion prototype plates in copper, which were then reproduced in softer metal and laced together over a model to test for form and drape, and ultimately molded and sculpted in eurothane. Similarly, blacksmiths created models for the helmets. Jewelers also applied their talents to the myriad details characteristic of Samurai armor, such as decorative discs and symbols, filigree, grommets and rivets in the form of chrysanthemums and other flowers because Samurai craftsmanship was like jewelers’ craftsmanship – very fine quality, and rich in detail.
Reproducing chain mail for the lead costumes presented another challenge, ultimately solved by contacting spring manufacturers who supply engineering companies. Armed with pliers, dedicated workers then spent approximately three months manipulating the links into appropriate 4 or 6mm rings. For background players, sheets of chain mail were obtained from India and cut to size. Once in hand, attaching chain to fabric required hand-stitching. Equally labor-intensive were the costumes’ collars, made of a fabric base with hexagonal metal plates attached through a layer of silk, which had to be of a certain quality to accommodate thick cord lacing, and then hand-stitching in a honeycomb pattern around each plate. Each collar took about 30 hours to make.
Finally, after holes were drilled and the various panels of armor laced together, then lacquered multiple times to achieve the right color, workers carefully chipped and scratched the plates to reveal the layers underneath and give each piece a history so that it would not appear brand new.
Originally designed for flexibility, with panels that move with the body, the Samurai armor required little modification for onscreen action and Dickson was able to make the hero costumes comfortable for stunts without compromising the visual antiquity.
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