a5c7b9f00b In Japan, Civil War veteran Captain Nathan Algren trains the Emperor's troops to use modern weapons as they prepare to defeat the last of the country's samurais. But Algren's passion is swayed when he is captured by the samurai and learns about their traditions and code of honor. An American military advisor embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy after he is captured in battle. The 2003 film 'The Last Samurai' is such a great but overlooked and underrated movie. I don't remember hearing much about it when it came out (maybe because I was only 13), but decided to check it out one night from Hollywood Video. After watching it, I can honestly say I have never been so emotionally connected to a movie in my life. I immediately decided I was going to spend the $20 to buy it, and watched it probably close to 20 times over the next 2 years. 10 years later it still remains one of my favorite movies of all time. <br/><br/>The movie follows Captain Nathan Algren, an Indian War survivor who has become an alcoholic and theater actor in an attempt to forget slaughtering the innocent Indian tribes he was ordered to during the war. He receives a visit from an old friend with a job opportunity: train Japanese peasants to soldier in order to stop the Samurai rebellion in Japan. He accepts and we now have our character journey. <br/><br/>The basic story is one you've seen before, and more than once. A soldier on one army joins/gets captured by the other side, and through spending time with the enemy, ends up pledging to their cause. The Last Samurai uses this formula, but makes it believable and real. While watching the movie, you understand why the appeal of the Samurai are more than that of his own army, and you believe that for the first time in his life he's willing to die for something he believes in. <br/><br/>While the story is unoriginal, the characters are what drives this movie. It is very much a character movie, and when something unfortunate happens to one, you empathize with them. Tom Cruise gives an Oscar worthy performance as the lead, but as far as standouts go, Ken Watanabe owns this movie with his performance as Katsumoto. He puts so much into being a tribal leader willing to die for what he believes in, and you buy it completely. Honestly one of the best performances I've ever seen, without question one of my favorites. The movie is worth watching based on Watanabe's performance alone.<br/><br/>The supporting cast is just as great too. Everyone from Katsumoto's sister Taka, who has to take care of Algren when he had unknowingly done something terrible to her family, to his son Nobutada, to the American and Japanese generals, everyone does their part to make the characters real and believable. You also feel an emotional tie with all the characters, which is a credit to the acting as well as the writing. Definitely have to give credit to the writers here, they may not have followed history perfectly, but they gave quite a few characters with some serious depth to them, and I felt such a strong emotional tie with them. <br/><br/>One final element of greatness to this movie was the score by Hans Zimmer. Easily one of the greatest composers in Hollywood with credentials like The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, and Inception to name a few, I personally think this might be his best work. Very few soundtracks do I listen to after the movie is over, and this is one of them. The score fits the movie perfectly and does nothing but enhance the performances and ties you feel with the characters. It's such a beautiful and yet somber score, that you can't help but listen to it and almost cry at the same time. I'm listening to it on repeat as I write this now because it's that breathtaking. <br/><br/>As I mentioned, I first saw this movie when it came out on DVD in 2004 and watched it numerous times over the next couple years. It's been at least 6 or 7 since I've watched it, so I decided to buy it on Blu-ray and give it a re-watch. The re-watch reaffirmed why this movie is still in my top 5 favorites of all time, a list shared with The Dark Knight, The Prestige, The Return of the King, and Inception. For me, a great movie is not defined by spectacle, it's defined by story and characters. Spectacle should add to a movie, not define it. And that's how I feel about all these movies. They are all strongly built on characters, and it's those movies that give the emotional ties. Out of all of them, this one and The Return of the King probably have had the biggest emotional effect on me, they're 2 movies that I am very likely to tear up during. <br/><br/>In closing, there's not enough good things I can say about this movie. Obviously everyone's different and some will like the film more than others, but I do believe the story is strong and the characters are great enough that most people will enjoy this movie on some level. It just so happens that for me it struck all the right nerves, which is why I rate it so highly and love it so much. I definitely can't call it a 'feel good movie' and it is fairly long (about 2 and a half hours) and draining as well. But it is without question worth watching and in my opinion, worth many re-watches. A truly rare gem that never got the recognition it deserves. 10/10. As may be gleaned from the above title, I was not terribly impressed with this film, which was not to say it didn't have high points.<br/><br/>We'll start with what was impressive. Tom Cruise. The scene where he is selling rifles while drunk and half reliving his Indian fighting days had some creepy and impressive acting. When his military superior pulls him aside and Cruise tells him he'd kill him for free, chilling. When the translator asks how to scalp someone, and Cruise shows him, freaky. But these are just a few scenes; it's not that Cruise is bad during the rest of the movie, just that he has few lines which are at all impressive outside of those 3 scenes. Besides, by half way through the movie you're thinking oh not another boring Hollywood plot, which of course it is.<br/><br/>Well, I was already started on what's bad, so I'll continue. Essentially although none of the acting is bad, the plot is stupid putrid Hollywood garbage. It is always so sad when a movie starts with promise and ends up being such a fizzle. I mean did he have to live with the wife of the man he killed? I mean if she didn't fall in love with him and just hated him throughout the movie I wouldn't care, but she did fall in love with him, how ridicules! To make matters worse, white boy insists on riding into battle dressed as a samurai, and being the only survivor to return the fallen master's samurai's sword to the emperor. Oh, and who can forget the scene in which all the Japanese military, who just finished the slaughter, bowed to the people they killed, STUPID. Hollywood needs some new ideas, why couldn't they have let the movie progress with good dialog and interesting introspection. I found the scene in which the master of the samurai was looking at the Indian pouch a very telling and powerful moment, no noise, no violence, no campy push for a tear, just letting what is be, and letting that have the power. Towards the end the movie has way too much slow motion death and forced sadness, it's hokey and over-dramatic.<br/><br/>While this is no Battlefield Earth, I still could not recommend it overall. Parts of this movie show great potential, and parts reek of Hollywood hype.<br/><br/>~Ryan A handsome epic, a brave-hearted 19th-century man-saga from the director who made the period piece man-sagas ''Glory'' and ''Legends of the Fall.'' Captain Nathan Algren (<a href="/name/nm0000129/">Tom Cruise</a>), a disillusioned American war hero who fought alongside General George Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, is hired to train the Emperor of Japan's troops to use firearms against an uprising of Imperial warriors led by the "last samurai" leader Katsumoto Morito (<a href="/name/nm0913822/">Ken Watanabe</a>). After being captured, nursed back to health, and trained to fight like a samurai, Algren must decide just whose side he is on. The Last Samurai is based on a screenplay by American screenwriter John Logan, filmmaker Edward Zwick (who also directed and co-produced the movie), and co-producer Marshall Herskovitz. The film was inspired by an earlier film, also titled <a href="/title/tt0099987/">The Last Samurai (1988)</a> (1991), although the stories are not related to each other. The movie begins in 1876 and spans one year of time. Although no attempt at historical accuracy is made, the story was inspired by several real events. The basic story, that of a samurai rebellion against the Imperial Japanese government, was inspired by the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion during which samurai in the Satsuma domain in Tokugawa Japan revolted against the new Meiji government. Algren's involvement was inspired by stories of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside the Tokugawas in the earlier Boshin War [1868-1869]. Katsumoto spared Algren partly because of his fighting skill but also because he had seen in a vision the crouching tiger that Algren displayed on the banner hanging from his spear. Sake or saké (pronounced "sah-key") is a type of rice-based alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin. Sometimes referred to as "rice wine", sake is actually brewed more like a beer and has a higher alcohol content (like from 18% to 20%) than mirin (sweet rice wine). Traditional sake is served at a temperature of 98.4°F. Capt. Algren was a veteran of the US Army's famed 7th Cavalry during both the civil war (1861-1865) and the Indian wars in the western territories after the war. As an experienced cavalry officer, he was proficient with using firearms and sabers while mounted on horseback though did not take part in the infamous Battle of The Little Bighorn of 4 July 1876 due to his assignment to train the emperor's army in Japan in 1876. Therefore, having been invited by the emperor to Japan basically kept Algren out of the battle, saving his life so to speak. Although firearms had been in use centuries earlier in Japan, they were later rejected as dishonorable. By the early 19th century, the gunsmith's art had fallen into disuse. However, both sides did use firearms in the Boshin War and the Satsuma Rebellion. There are no accounts of ninjas being used by the Meiji government during the Satsuma Rebellion. In fact, it is highly unlikely if they even existed by 1877. The last known use of ninjas in warfare was during the Shimabara Rebellion [1637-1638] during the Edo period, which was 240 years before the Satsuma Rebellion took place. The samurai do well in the first round of the battle but, when the second and third regiments come, they are no match for the Gatling guns. The entire Samurai army is destroyed. Mortally wounded, Katsumoto asks Algren to help him die with honor, so Algren assists him with performing seppuku. At the death of Katsumoto, the entire Imperial army fall to their knees and bow before the fallen samurai. Only Algren survives. Later, as the Emperor (<a href="/name/nm1258003/">Shichinosuke Nakamura</a>) is about to sign the treaty between the Americans and the Japanese, a badly-injured Algren appears before the court and offers Katsumoto's sword to the Emperor in hopes that he will remember all that his ancestors have done. The Emperor accepts the sword and rules that this treaty is not in the best interest of his people. When Omura (<a href="/name/nm0361735/">Masato Harada</a>) protests, the Emperor informs him that he has decided to confiscate Omura's family's assets and make of them a gift to the people. He offers Katsuomoto's sword to Omura should he not be able to live with the disgrace, but Omura bows and backs away. The final scenes show Algren returning to Katsumoto's village and to Taka (<a href="/name/nm0468746/">Koyuki</a>) and her sons. In a voiceover, Simon Graham (<a href="/name/nm0001758/">Timothy Spall</a>) says: And so the days of the samurai had ended. Nations, like men, it is sometimes said, have their own destiny. As to the American captain, no one knows what became of him. Some say he died of his wounds, others that he returned to his own country, but I like to think he may have, at least, found some small measure of peace that we all seek and few of us ever find. Although he's been taught some Samurai swordplay, Algren is not Samurai. There is some confusion among viewers because of the fact that the word "samurai" is both a singular word and a plural word. In the singular, samurai can refer to a specific individual, as "Katsumoto is a Samurai." In the plural, samurai can refer to Samurai warriors in the collective, as "Katsumoto is Samurai" or "Katsumoto's Samurai." Therefore, it can be argued that the "Last Samurai" can refer either to Katsumoto himself, to his Samurai army, or to the last of the real Japanese Samurai. In the bonus section on the DVD, the director explains that the title refers to the Samurai as a race or class of people. The whole movie, in fact, is based on the end of the Samurai culture and the emergence of a new way of life in Japan, based on western ideals. The Last Samurai is often compared to <a href="/title/tt0099348/">Dances with Wolves (1990)</a> (1990) and <a href="/title/tt0066049/">A Man Called Horse (1970)</a> (1970) for the storyline, although both of these two movies deal with Native American Indians, not Japanese samurai. If it's similar samurai movies you want, try the TV miniseries <a href="/title/tt0080274/">Shogun (1980)</a> (1980) or Akira Kurosawa's <a href="/title/tt0047478/">Shichinin no samurai (1954)</a> (Seven Samurai) (1954). The classic epic <a href="/title/tt0056172/">Lawrence of Arabia (1962)</a> (1962) is another film with a story about East meeting West, a westerner bonding with a group of "natives" that he joins up with, and is critical of westernization becoming intrusive to foreign societies/cultures.