Cheap The Last Samurai (Full Screen Edition) (DVD) (Ken Watanabe, Tom Cruise, Billy Connolly) (Edward Zwick) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Last Samurai (Full Screen Edition)

Serene Elegance in a Tom Cruise Film
"The Last Samurai" was certainly one of the best movies of 2003. The main story is a reverent account of the character of the Japanese people and the Samurai in particular, but there's much more to it than simply that. The film has many subplots and resolves them all neatly without ever seeming contrived. Everything from Algren's (Tom Cruise) search for peace to his understated yet elegant love story with Taka (Koyuki) is handled as well as it conceivably could be. Writer John Logan avoids the overwrought melodrama that burdens most war movies; everything is as quietly graceful as the Samurai way of living depicted within the film.

The acting is, on every front, excellent. Tom Cruise gives an uncharacteristically melancholy performance as Captain Nathan Algren, while Ken Watanabe perfectly encapsulates the quiet honor of Samurai leader Katsumoto. The actors cast in the supporting roles are equally suited to the film, each giving realistic and powerful performances by turns.

Director Edward Zwick infuses the entire film with the necessary serene feel. He uses well-placed camera angles to complement and enhance the already magnificent sets, and even cliched choices (such as Algren's choppy, blurred memories) are handled competently. The only area that Zwick falls a little short in is in his directing of the action. Despite the R rating of the film, he displays a timidity in his direction which, at times, makes it blatantly obvious that these are stunts. Even still, this movie is not an action film, and it's appropriate that Zwick kept it from becoming a visceral bloodbath. This isn't too say that there aren't graphic depictions of violence, but Zwick generally avoids the blatant displays which fill movies like "Kill Bill", preferring to quickly cut away from gory moments.

If "The Last Samurai" has a real problem, it's that the story is about somewhat immaterial concepts: tradition, honor, and the character of a culture. It can be difficult to emotionally connect with things of such abstract nature, but even still, it's as elegant a defense of such things as the moviegoer is likely to find. And the stories of the characters and their relationships within this defense are powerful enough to provide more than enough emotional resonance to compensate.

In a year that saw the release of many excellent films, "The Last Samurai" is among the best. Patient, mature viewers will find much to admire herein, though those seeking a light-hearted action romp may wish to look elsewhere.

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Ruined by Conventional Hollywood Filmmaking
Talk about a movie that could've been sooo much better than it actually was. I didn't dislike all of it; I'm a sucker for anything with samurais in it, and so I found parts of it very entertaining. And being interested in the Meiji Restoration, I felt it was worth seeing. But as a whole, this film is over-Hollywoodized and far too melodramatic to be worth more than a single viewing, in my eyes.

The film concerns an American soldier named Nathan Algren, who fought in the Civil War and later became disillusioned during the Battle of Little Bighorn. In 1876, Japan is in the middle of the Meiji Restoration. The old ways are being cast aside for the new, and the samurai has become a relic of the past. A band of samurai, led by the fictitious Katsumoto, probably based on the real-life Saigo Takamori, believes that the old Japan can be saved. They've been attacking railroads and other constructs of Westernization. Frustrated, Japan has asked the United States for officers to train Japanese troops in modern warfare so they can fight the samurai. Algren, played by Tom Cruise, is asked to go.

Following a brief training period, the Japanese troops are ordered to fight the samurai. This is one of the best scenes in the film. When the troops are lined up in the forest, with mist all around, and there are weird noises off in the distance, the samurai come riding slowly out of the fog, swords raised, clad in intricate armor and horned helmets, looking like ancient death incarnate... It's an enormous thrill. The troops lose the battle and Algren is captured. He comes to learn the ways of the samurai and to develop a friendship with their leader, Katsumoto. The film is more or less about Algren embracing the ancient ways of the samurai.

The film has a decent amount of swordplay. It isn't as graphic as some samurai films I've seen, but blood is shed, heads are chopped off, etc. A few times the film was slowed down so you could see how graceful and skilled samurai swordfighting really is. I have to say that I came away with a slightly greater appreciation for the samurai than I had previously.

But hell if they didn't completely ruin the whole enterprise with over-sentimentalized, conventional Hollywood filmmaking. Tom Cruise is a good actor, but I felt that he was wrong for the role. He just isn't complex enough to be believable for what the film demanded of him. I feel like this film would've been the perfect vehicle for a little-known actor to make a name for himself. And as for the fictitious character of Nathan Algren, well, this is quite obviously an American movie for American audiences, if you know what I mean. For example, we're expected to believe that a U.S. soldier with some scabbard training can become a master samurai swordsman in a matter of months. Yeah...

As for the plot, it's more or less "Dances With Wolves in Japan." And there's this tacked on love story - or "flirt story" - that had really no reason being in the movie. I personally despise tacked on love stories.

And talk about melodrama! A little melodrama here and there is forgivable, and even expected in most big budget films of this kind, but it was laid on way too thick in this movie - especially at the end. What could've been an emotional finale ended up being 10 to 15 minutes of overbearing tear-jerking. Gag!

Call me sadistic, but I have to say the most satisfying part of the film is when a samurai beats the living crap out of Tom Cruise with a wooden sword. Definitely worth the price of admission.

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Don't expect too much
What's the reason for watching The Last Samurai? The sword-fighting scenes. There are a lot of sword-fighting scenes, they're well-done, and if you enjoy watching them you'll find entertainment value in the movie. Also, the Japanese countryside is filmed beautifully here, so if you have an appreciation for nature, it's another incentive to watch.

Otherwise, The Last Samurai is nothing special. The storyline is simplistic; the samurai are all two-dimensional and unquestionably the fine and good people in the film. They can do no evil, truly. For Cruise it's one of those self-righteous roles where he gets to look angsty for the camera. There's one scene at the end for example, where he's kneeling and holding up a sword, and he's trying to look like someone who is under great emotional strain and there are these ludicrous close-ups of his sweaty face - really gratuitous. The movie defintely would have benefited from some editing and character development.