Review of The Last Samurai (2003) by Tatie S — 08 Jul 2011

So I wasn?t really sure why I never wanted to see this film. For years it just sort of existed at the edge of my radar with no real desire to see or not see it. Then when I was thinking about stuff to review it came to mind and I thought that it was worth checking out. I was really pleasantly surprised by this film, it is great, with a cool historical story about a real turning point in Japan?s history as it entered modernity, awesome action and epic battles on top of a really emotionally fulfilling script. I am really really happy with The Last Samurai.

The movie is about a former American army captain (played by Tom Cruise) who after becomign disillusioned with life after his wars against the natives is sent to Japan to help modernize their military as a vcontract between the Emperor and the United States. He is told that the army fights against this old holdout from the days of the Samurai and that they still fight with bow and sword. In a heavy loss conflict with them, the army captain is captured and spends time amongst these last of the Samurai who still cling to the old bushido code.

The Good:

I don?t think it is hard to say I am in love with this movie. I mean the acting is good, the story is great, the action is awesome and it is hard to imagine someone seeing this and not being inspired. In the days of Japanese culture being thought of as robots and anime, this movie in a sense really cuts to the ancient heart of what defines the land of the rising sun.

The action is amazing especially the battle scenes, even if you don?t want intellectual or emotional depth it is worth seeing for some of the action this movie has as well as showing off how 19th century combat works compared to medieval combat. I could go on and on about some of this stuff but I will break here for the sake of brevity.

The Bad:

There are a few little things I had issue with in this movie. The first I have to get out of the way is that I loathe Tom Cruise and his evil cult, but I don?t think you can take two steps in Hollywood without running into Scientologists these days so I guess that hardly makes sense. But besides that I had some problems with the changing of history. Specifically the modernization of Japan instead of being carried out by the great European powers like what actually happened they decided to make it entirely American which rings as rather ethnocentric, but alas it is minor. One last thing that I might be wrong about, but I would think that iron armour like the one the samurais wear wouldnt be pierced by the lead bullets of 19th century guns so easily. I think the Samurai would have been better off than the movie lets on.

Also, maybe I fudged something up with subtitles, but it seems like I missed out on a lot of dialogue because it was in Japanese without subtitles.

Conclusions:

SEE THIS MOVIE. It is epic, will written and overall just great. The only person I might not recommend it for are those who are really sticklers for accuracy in historical movies and those who cant tolerate violence.