The Last Samurai: Filming Locations from Taranaki to Kyoto

The Last Samurai begins in 1876 with Nathan Algren, a former U.S. Army captain haunted by the American Indian Wars and drinking too much. Before he ever sails for Japan, he is introduced to the Japanese gentlemen who want him to train their new army. That restaurant scene was filmed in the Moorish Room of Castle Green, at 99 South Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, California.

Algren's job is to train the newly created Imperial Japanese Army. The parade ground where the troops drill, and where Algren invites a young recruit to shoot him, was the Pukekura Sports Ground in New Plymouth, New Zealand. The park around it is a 52-hectare Garden of National Significance in the heart of the city.

Visitor guidance: Pukekura Park is a public garden in the middle of New Plymouth; the sports ground lies inside it.

Algren leads his recruits into their first fight in the forest fog, and the conscripts flee in terror and are easily routed by the samurai; his comrade Gant is killed. The fog battle was filmed in Mangamahoe Forest, around Lake Mangamahoe in Taranaki. The pin marks the lake rather than the exact clearing where the scene was shot.

Location precision: The location guide names Mangamahoe Forest and the lake but no exact clearing; the pin marks Lake Mangamahoe.

Wounded and captured, Algren is taken to Katsumoto's village and tended by Taka, and slowly learns the samurai's world. The village never existed in Japan: it was constructed in the Uruti Valley in northern Taranaki, New Zealand, with Mount Taranaki standing in for Mount Fuji. Filmmakers chose the region because the mountain resembles Fuji, and it became the backdrop of the film.

Location precision: The village was a set in the Uruti Valley; the pin marks Uruti, not the exact site of the set.

Katsumoto's temple in the film is Engyō-ji on Mount Shosha in Himeji City, about 30 miles west of Kobe, and one of the few true Japanese locations in a film shot mostly in New Zealand. Getting there is part of the visit: a 20-minute bus ride from Himeji, a short cable car ride and a 15-minute uphill walk.

Visitor guidance: From Himeji take a 20-minute bus, a short cable car and a 15-minute uphill walk.

When Katsumoto requests a meeting with Emperor Meiji in Tokyo, the film's imperial palace is Chion-in, a 400-year-old temple in Kyoto. Its imposing flight of steps stands in for the palace in the capital, so the crew filmed the scene in Kyoto rather than Tokyo. The temple is at 400 Rinkacho in Kyoto's Higashiyama Ward and can be visited today.

Visitor guidance: Chion-in is at 400 Rinkacho, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto.