A Cross-cultural Comparative Study Of Japanese Bushido And European Chivalry Reflected In Two Films

Every ethnic group shapes its own culture and value system in thehistoric development. As a set of moral codes established by feudalsamurai, bushido is regarded as the essence of the Japanese culture. Theestablishment of bushido has a close relationship with Shintoism,Buddhism and Confucianism. As the central thought of the societydominated by samurai, bushido has a moral system for the samurai. Afterthe Tokugawa Regime was overturned in the Meiji Restoration, thebushido system was abolished. However, the spirit of bushido was passedon. The spirit of bushido became the spiritual support and influencedJapanese’s characters generation after generation.As the essence of the European culture, chivalry prospered anddeclined approximately throughout the whole medieval time. Themedieval chivalry started from cavalrymen who fought in the battle.These cavalrymen played a decisive role in battles of the early time.Afterwards, the cavalrymen became “Christ’s soldiers” under theinfluence of the church. Chivalry is the aristocracy culture of the upperclass in the feudal society. It represented a set of rules in spirit andmorality of the essence class. More importantly, chivalry has a profoundinfluence in politics and culture of the west Europe. This paper intends to contrast the differences between bushido andchivalry through context analysis of the film The Last Samurai and KingArthur. By a contrast between Japanese bushido and European chivalryshown in the films, readers can find out cross-cultural reasons of suchdivergence in the cultural essence. In addition, readers can have aretrospection of the remaining cultural essence to see whether it isadvancing or backward in the historic development.