Review of The Last Samurai (2003) by Dawdlingpoet — 21 Nov 2021

I thought this was surprisingly good and not entirely violence and bloodshed filled. I liked the interactions with the locals and the, I assume, Asian music played in the background. I thought the performances were pretty decent and indeed I was somewhat surprised to discover Tim Spall playing Simon Graham and also Billy Connolly as Zebulon Gant - an eclectic cast for for a film set in such a foreign land, I imagine you'd agree?.

There are some cheesy/cliched aspects to it, no doubt. A number of times Cruise is shown with the typical pensive/deep in thought type look on his face, that or/and the determined expression shows up a lot, which I felt to be a little cliched, or certainly cheesy to say the least.

Also, a young child is shown talking to Nathan a number of times - I imagine many a girl/woman/lady thinking they look cute together but I question the credibility/feasibility, of him being able to speak the local mother tongue/dialect fluently for one thing. I'm not a big fan of Tom Cruise, I think its fair to say! still, that and the issues I've raised aside, I will say that the fight sequences are well filmed, with some good martial arts based fighting shown, good choreography and well shot battle scenes. I liked that there is a context shown for these fights/battles, rather than it being one long war/battle film and little else. It did feel somewhat more substantial than, I suppose, I'd expected it to be. Overall it is quite good I'd say, even if your not especially keen on Tom Cruise.