Last Samurai-worth seeing?

[bandit]

-- Was it just me or whenever the emperor talked I wished he'd just shut up I wouldve rather listened to fingernails on a chalkboard. (maybe the fact that he was a total puss made it worse for me to hear him)

Whenever the emperor talked..I just kinda smiled. It was the way he talked not to mention the lisp he had.

[MarsVolta]

lol, over all it was historically accurate as some have said above, however i cannot say that any American officers were offered the chance to lead some of Japan's military. I do believe though, that we may have sent military advisors to assist their newly modernized and unorganized military.

[soundwave]

Also what was the main reason that the samurais were rebelling for? Were they just anti-technology and anti western influence or what? The movie never really gave a good explanation for why the government hated the samurai so damn much.The people in the city respected them (bowing when they entered), the emperor was friends and had the one as his mentor, the only person who seemed to really hate them was Osaka ( the pudgy, bearded advisor), so WTF - why kill them all

Jetman, the rebel leader Katsumoto was rebelling against modernization and foreign influence which threatened the samurai's (feudal warrior) way of life--they were commiting acts of terrorism, sabotage etc on railroads and causing civil unrest. The Japanese council who was profitting from the modernization pressured/manipulated the Emperor into hunting them down.
but the decline of the samurai was inevitable because Japan was united -- no more constant struggle between warlords and the need for swordsmen dwindled. Though the movie is fictional the history behind is pretty accurate. Read up on the Meiji Restoration.

Maruchan, I felt that way about the (spoiler) too but it wasn't his destiny...

[Drewbacca]

good movie..

I only wished that
Tom Cruise would have died with all the other samuri's

No, I don't believe Cruise should've been killed. The whole point behind the film was remembering the past while going to the future. The Japanese military had to kill almost every single Samurai to realize that they were making a mistake and almost wiped out their history by succombing to modernization. This message is accented in relevance when Cruise presents Watanabe's sword to the Emporer. He says almost exactly what Katsumoto said just a couple days prior, but this time the Emporer realized its importance.

Nathan Algren is The Last Samurai. If he had died the ways of the Samurai would've been smoted (atleast, in the films scope) and leaving him, or atleast one other alive is a proper ending to the message presented. And he himself (Nathan Algren) represents a piece of the future that saved and remembered the past. It's all symbolic and makes sense to the theme.

Killing off Algren would have meant that the ways of the Samurai were through.

[Jetman]

Jetman, the rebel leader Katsumoto was rebelling against modernization and foreign influence which threatened the samurai's (feudal warrior) way of life--they were commiting acts of terrorism, sabotage etc on railroads and causing civil unrest. The Japanese council who was profitting from the modernization pressured/manipulated the Emperor into hunting them down.
but the decline of the samurai was inevitable because Japan was united -- no more constant struggle between warlords and the need for swordsmen dwindled. Though the movie is fictional the history behind is pretty accurate. Read up on the Meiji Restoration.

Gotcha - That does make sense - thanks soundwave - I really should do some reading up on it if I get the chance. Seems like an interesting period of history worth learning about.

[Dolemite]

Holy shit, that was one amazing movie. Best one I've seen in a while. It was both beautiful and brutal, which expressed the duality of the Samurai cluture perfectly. Never dragged despite it being 2 1/2 hours. Actually, the long length made how Cruise's character fell in love with the village and the ways of the Samurai far more relaistic- they took their time developing the story and characters. By the time he was accepted by the warriors and even put on the armor for the final battle it didn't seem out of place at all.

The Ninja battle owned so fucking much.

Guess it's up to Cruise to re-populate the Samurai village, eh?


I always found it amusing that the Westerners referred to the Japanese as "savages", yet back in the 1700's when the missionaries first showed up to convert Japanese to Christianity they were appalled by the Japanese pratice of bathing daily (I was reminded of this when the one Japanese girl said Cruise smelt like a pig). The westerners thought that bathing every day was unhealthy, since they thought that the oils, etc. built up on the skin protected one from disease. The missionaries tried to forbid their Japanese converts from bathing more than one every other week, but often caught them sneaking baths...

[Clash!]

I liked the movie alot, but it I did not think it was Fantastic, good but not great. Tom Cruise was a little too over the top half the time it seemed, he was good but it felt a little too fake. Also the movie felt too clean, it should have been griteir almost for its time period. Some of the side plots were not fleshed out as well as they could have been at times as well. The whole time I watched it I had this feeling that it should be much more epic, but it wasn't. Another small problem was how obvious the CG landscapes were, as well as the fake skies, they just looked out of place half the time.

Overall I give it a B-.

[Timber]

No, I don't believe Cruise should've been killed.

dude, you just totaly negated his spoiler tag

[DarkCrow676]

Nathan Algren is The Last Samurai. If he had died the ways of the Samurai would've been smoted (atleast, in the films scope) and leaving him, or atleast one other alive is a proper ending to the message presented. And he himself (Nathan Algren) represents a piece of the future that saved and remembered the past. It's all symbolic and makes sense to the theme.

I have to disagree with you there. Not all Samurai fought in one last battle. Some accepted the change and continued to live there lives, others fought back. Algren was by no means the last Samurai. Now I'm no expert on the meji era, but thats just how I see it.

One thing that irkerd me during the movie was during the first big battle how Cruise's character was able to kill several samurai let alone defend himself while injured against four samurai at one time, then later, he gets his ass kicked fighting one on one. Personaly, i think Algren would have been dead in that first battle long before Katsamoto had a chance to stop his death.

[Despair]

I liked the movie alot, but it I did not think it was Fantastic, good but not great. Tom Cruise was a little too over the top half the time it seemed, he was good but it felt a little too fake. Also the movie felt too clean, it should have been griteir almost for its time period. Some of the side plots were not fleshed out as well as they could have been at times as well. The whole time I watched it I had this feeling that it should be much more epic, but it wasn't. Another small problem was how obvious the CG landscapes were, as well as the fake skies, they just looked out of place half the time.

Overall I give it a B-.

I didnt notice much of CGI landscapes, except for coast town docs, and San Francisco skyline. Everything else looked 100% real. No problem with Sky as well. Its like you neat picking trying to find the flaws, instead of just enjoying it.

I think it looked gritty enough, at least on the level of Hollywood depiction of historic events. If you compare this to Kurosawa films, yes, this one is more cleaner, but keep in mind that it also takes place in later time than Kurosawa epics.

I dont see why people picking on Cruise performance. I think the man did a great job here, and made me like him I think his acting as tortured soul, who finds redemption was very nicely presented.