Customer Reviews

Samurai Japan: A Journey Back in Time - Lost Treasures of the Ancient World

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It is an interesting movie I'd have to say.. But it doesn't talk primarily about the samurais of Japan. It talks more about the history of Japan, how it was introduced to Buddhism and Christianity afterwards; it also talks about its most famous surviving architecture. The movie doesn't quite hold its title; it should be called (the history of Japan) or something like that. So if you were like me, looking for more details about the samurais you will not find this one very informative in some sense.

The title "Lost Treasures" may be misleading, but it is a treasure to AP World History teachers and students. The documentary touches on all the major points of Japanese history from Nara/Heian through the feudal period to its opening by America in the 19th century. On the downside, it moves a little slow and does not have a lot of pizazz.

This 50-minute documentary is an overview of Japanese history through the 19th century, with special attention to the samurai and to architectural treasures of Japan.

The filmmakers didn't seem to have a clear sense of what they were trying to do in this film. If you want to learn about Japanese history, this is a decent overview, but you may wish there were somewhat less attention given to the samurai and to individual architectural treasures. If you're particularly interested in the samurai, you'll learn how they fit into Japanese history, and you'll learn about their armor and swords and "the way of the warrior," but you may be disappointed that the samurai aren't actually the focus of the film. And if you're particularly interested in Japanese architecture, you'll learn a bit about that, but again, it isn't the focus of the film.

A better documentary on Japanese history (from the 16th through 19th centuries) is "Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire" from the PBS "Empires" series.

My 8th graders had to be kept awake. Avoid this video at all costs.

This documentary contains very little footage of japan. In fact, what little footage there is of Japan might all be stock footage, and a number of relevant visuals are still shots that look like they were poorly scanned from photos. About 60% of the film is footage of three professors talking about Japan, there is a brief history of Japan from about 500bc to present, it moves at a fast pace and contains a couple of minor errors. The visuals are highly repetitive, there is a lot of footage of the imperial palace in Tokyo - formerly Edo Castle - although Edo castle and the imperial palace are not mentioned in the film. I thought the CGI models didn't add much to the documentary, it seems to me likely they were put in to add "Japan content" without the expense of going to Japan. The samurai are fairly peripheral to the documentary.

This documentary, was not very good. It mainly talks about the religion of Japan, so if that is what you interested in, then you may like it. But overall I was very unimpressed with it. Not worth buying in my opinion.