Review of The Last Samurai (2003) by Patryk C — 30 Jul 2012

Good, not great. Worth seeing. The criticisms of its content are accurate. It makes the Samurai seem like saints and the Western capitalists who helped modernize Japan seem like devils. It's the beginning premise of this movie, and it makes the rest of it a bit of a fantasy. That said, the movie deals in Romanticism, and it works, because the time period is the Romantic era. I found the ending to be a bit of a stretch, although I do have to give some praise to the writers and the director for not always going for the obvious. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise)'s behavior under the circumstances was completely plausible. The real stars of this show are Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Sanada is outstanding in a film called Twilight Samurai.