Review of The Last Samurai (2003) by Edward C — 08 Mar 2014

The last Samurai(2003).

Starring:Tom Cruise, Timothy Spall, Ken Wantabe, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Hiroyuki Sanada,Koyuki, Schinoskue Nakamura, and Shun Suguta.

Directed By:Edward Zwick.

My Review.

IN THE FACE OF AN ENEMY, IN THE HEART OF ONE MAN, LIES THE SOUL OF A WARRIOR.

I have always found samurai's to be cool, cause of their honor but I never found a samurai movie I loved. I have been searching for that one samurai movie that I would love but some seemed to old,without English dub and kind of boring. When ever I would look at lists of samurai movies to watch two movies would always come up, Yojambo and The last Samurai. I would always see a blu ray of these movies but Yojambo was too expensive and my mother wouldn't buy me The Last Samurai each time I saw it and asked.I got fortunate once though when I happened to find a cheap DVD copy and I bought it even though I wanted Bluray.

The film is about Nathan Algren, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who is hired by the Emperor Meiji to train an army capable of wiping out the samurai. But when Algren is captured by the samurai and taught about their history and way of life, he finds himself conflicted over who he should be fighting alongside.

When I was watching the picture I could feel the way Nathan(Cruise) and Katsumoto(Wantanabe) were becoming closer as friends. Kasumoto says to Nathan early in the film when they meet that he wants to know his enemy. Katsmoto is a complex character he is fighting against the emperor's men, but out of loyalty to the tradition the emperor represents, he would sacrifice his life in an instant, he says, if the emperor requested it. I felt that this was a movie where it was old vs new, the ways of a samurai warrior vs the laws of no samurai. The question this movie gives us is there an element of seeking "a good death"? Is a there a line between dying for what you believe in, and dying because of what you believe in?

The last Samurai is a film that gets great praise that is most deserving and it took me a while to see it but I'm glad I did. Our main cast was amazing and made the way of the samurai and honor present all the way through this picture. I give The last Samurai a five out of five.