Review of The Last Samurai (2003) by Jesse O — 11 Feb 2011

This movie is like Avatar. Only better. Granted, that this movie's view of the samurai is romanticized like a motherfucker. It's still a pretty great movie. And the big reason I enjoyed this movie was because of how beautiful the little village was where they filmed the samurai scenes when they "held" Algren hostage.

It was just a BEAUTIFUL and peaceful village. Granted it was New Zealand and not Japan, but they did about as great a job as making it feel Japanese. The beauty and peace just emanating from this place was probably the best part of the movie.

Because, while the story is good, it's still a cliche of an "outsider" learning about a culture he knows nothing about and then falling in love with said culture. Again, it's like Avatar, only better.

The problem with Avatar is that it was so concerned trying to shove its message down your throat that it got in the way of telling an effective story. And, you don't need to create a fictional world where people are like "Woah, that's beautiful" when there's still a lot of beautiful places on Earth.

Case in point, this place in New Zealand, where the movie was filmed. And again, Avatar is TOO preachy. Fucking white guilt everywhere. James Cameron just sucks as a storyteller. But anyway, the story is pretty common and the dialogue is fine but not great.

Yet I still loved this movie. Again, it's the setting and the fact that you learn a little something about the samurai. Ken Watanabe is fantastic. Ken has, what I was mentioning the other day with Toshiro Mifune, a very commanding on screen presence.

It's not as strong as Toshiro's, but he's an actor that commands your attention any time he's on screen. Oh and then there's Taka, Nathan's love interest. What a beautiful woman.

Anyway what else??? The last battle scene is also pretty fucking great. Sad as shit (especially *SPOILER* Katsumoto's death), but fucking great. It's one of those great heroic deaths you see in movies.

Even though the odds were against them and the 'enemy' had access to firearms, the samurai went out fighting like heroes. And that's all you can ask for from this movie. So yea, it's a pretty fucking great movie.

And the thing is, both times I've seen this movie (back when it first came out in 2003) and NOW, I'm inspired to find some books on the samurai and educate myself further. I'm not sure if that was part of the purpose, but I'm bound to find some books.

What else is left??? Um..oh...Tom Cruise. Well he does the phony Tom Cruise laugh (you know the one), but other than that he's pretty cool in this movie. That's it, great movie. Romanticized as shit, but who gives a fuck? It's a movie.