Vincent Ward  +  

Year:

2003

Vincent Ward worked on The Last Samurai for three years as the director for the project, where he oversaw the development with Interscope (Radar Pictures). During this time he worked up the material with various script-writers including Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan and brought the project to a point where it was ready to take to market. 

However, he decided not to direct the film himself. Instead he took on the role of Executive Producer and pitched it to three different directors; Peter Weir, Ridley Scott and finally Ed Zwick who took the job. 

The film is inspired by the real life stories of Eugène Collache and Jules Brunet, both French Imperial Guard officers, who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the earlier Boshin War; and Philip Kearny, a United States Army and French Imperial Guard soldier who fought against the Tututni tribe in the Rogue River Wars in Oregon.

The outline of the script changed little from the Schenkkan draft to the finished film. It remained a story set in 1872, during the Meiji Rebellions, following an American who sides with the rebels. The main difference being that the version Ward worked on centred around a cattle drive. It also focussed on an outsider who carried baggage from the Civil war, and who becomes an unlikely hero. Even though the final script is in many ways similar to the Schenken version, none of the earlier writers were credited.

As a New Zealander, Vincent had developed the idea with the intention of shooting some of it around NZ's Mt Taranaki which looks very much like Mt Fuji, and that is in fact where they ended up shooting. 

Vincent went on to develop and direct ‘What Dreams May Come’ with the same producers at Interscope (Radar Pictures).