Ah yes, because when I think "movies that aren't right wing" I think "There's no way that movie where Tom Cruise is a white saviour for the Japanese Samurai and helps them rediscover their honour by being a better samurai than any of them could be and completely ignores all of the actual realities of the Boshin war and turns it into a basic "tradition vs modernity and modernity bad" conflict could ever possibly be right wing. Because most of the actors aren't white, just the lead."

[–] Keld@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The movie isn't about the Boshin war, it's a fictionalising of the Seinan war. Ken Watanabe plays a fictionalised version of Saigō Takamori rather than the shogun, and the culminating battle is a thinly veiled battle of Shiroyama.

Issues such as existing trade, the issues of whether the shogun or the emperor were the traditional seat of acctual power, and whether the country should modernise were settled.
Saigō Takamori killed hundrds of his countrymen (With modern weaponry, including a gatling gun at the battle of Toba–Fushimi) to make his country more racist and put Meiji on the throne. He was directly behind the abolishment of the Han system and backed Meiji as he ended Shizoku feudal privileges. He only flipped because the Meiji government was not imperialist enough (Yes really) and the betrayal of the principles of sonnō jōi (Anti western reactionary politics).

The man left government in anger after the emperor refused to allow him to go to Korea on his own to stir up enough trouble that war would become inevitable.