The Samurai

In the early seventeenth century, a low-ranking samurai named Hasekura is chosen almost by accident to lead a diplomatic mission across the Pacific to New Spain, then on to Madrid and Rome, seeking a trade agreement for his Japanese lords. He travels alongside Velasco, an ambitious Franciscan missionary who sees the voyage as his own path to power within the Church. The mission drags on for years and fails at every stage, and to keep it alive the envoys agree to be baptized without believing. When Hasekura finally returns home, he finds a Japan that has outlawed Christianity and now views him as a threat. Endo turns the failed embassy into a meditation on loyalty, faith, and the cost of being caught between two worlds.