What happened to Japanese martial arts in this movie?

Another imdb poster uttered the same comment as I am about to here.

Didn't anyone see a parallel to the 1992 hit movie, "Last of the Mohicans"?
In the movie, set during the 1756 French and Indian War in North America, British redcoat soldiers, among the best-trained and most disciplined in the western world, find themselves unable to cope in individual, hand-to-hand combat against fierce, agile, Native American Huron indian warriors. Once the hostile indian warriors survive the intial musket volleys of the trained Brit redcoats, the indians swarm under the redcoat bayonets, stabbing, slashing, hacking, chopping, to horrific effect. British redcoats, their two hands pre-occuppied holding onto a long, heavy, unwieldy firearm, cannot defend themselves at close quarters against the indians' hand weapons.

This is what happens to the well-trained, well-armed, and highly-disciplined Japanese peasant soldiers and their samurai-class officers. No Japanese seems to know any combat jujutsu, karate-jutsu, kenjutsu, or any other venerable Japanese martial arts. The Japanese get their heads sliced off by wicked, curved, forward-angled hand machetes that resemble miniature versions of the scythe-like, two-handed swords of the ancient Dacian warriors that did the same horrific effect on Roman legionaires. The Japanese soldiers and officers are seen floundering almost helplessly in the face of a close-combat assault, even panicking and retreating while suffering near 100% casualties in the battles depicted. Most Japanese persons would cringe watching this movie. To Japanese persons, this movie must seem completely anti-Japanese propaganda.

I have something of an answer, since I enjoy reading military history. The Meiji Era imperial Japanese army was 100% based on European models, primarily that of France and Germany. Even bayonet training was based on French bayonet practice. In the late 19th century, Japan had turned its back on its own samurai military traditions. There were several reasons for this. The restoration of the Japanese emperor's throne to true power meant overthrowing the Shogunate and its samurai class. The Japanese faced the conundrum of honoring its samurai history and traditions while suppressing it completely in order to build a 'new order'. You see that for a time even the Japanese officers were carrying European-style swords. By the time of the military dictatorship in the first decades of the 20th century, there was a conscious return to Japanese military tradition by the re-introduction of the samurai sword design for officers and NCOs. Japanese hand-to-hand combat, based on old jujutsu styles, became part of military basic training. However, the western-modernized Japanese Army of 1905 did not emphasize hand-to-hand combat, instead emulating western armies in tactical formation mass infantry assaults.