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>> THE LAST SAMURAI

Starring: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connoly and more...
Director: Edward Zwick
Genre: Drama, Action & Adventure




"the last samurai" is about two warriors whose cultures make them aliens, but whose values make them comrades. the battle scenes are stirring and elegantly mounted, but they are less about who wins than about what can be proven by dying. beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic. Iis power is compromised only by an ending that sheepishly backs away from what the film is really about.

tom Cruise and ken watanabe co-star, as a shabby civil war veteran and a proud samurai warrior. cruise plays nathan algren, a war hero who now drifts and drinks too much, with no purpose in life. he's hired by americans who are supplying mercenaries to train an army for the japanese emperor, who wants to move his country into the modern world and is faced with a samurai rebellion.

the role of the samurai leader katsumoto (watanabe) is complex; he is fighting against the emperor's men, but out of loyalty to the tradition the emperor represents, he would sacrifice his life in an instant, he says, if the emperor requested it. but japan has been seized with a fever to shake off its medieval ways and copy the west, and the west sees money to be made in the transition: representatives from the remington arms company are filling big contracts for weapons, and the U.S. embassy is a clearinghouse for lucrative trade arrangements.

it's at this point that "the last Samurai" begins to reveal itself as more than an action picture. katsumoto, who conveniently speaks english, explains he has kept algren alive because he wants to know his enemy. algren at first refuses to speak, but gradually, during a long, rainy winter of captivity, he begins to have philosophical conversations with the other man about the ethics of war and warriors. some of these talks sound like Socratic exchanges:

katsumoto: "do you believe a man can change his destiny?"

algren: "i believe a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed."

for algren, the traditional village life is a soothing tonic. haunted by nightmares from his wartime experiences, he confesses, "here i have known my first untroubled sleep in many years." he has been lodged in the house of taka (Koyuki), the widow of a man he killed in battle, and although she complains bitterly to katsumoto, she maintains a smiling facade in algren's presence.

algren: "i killed her husband!"

katsumoto: "it was a good death."

"the last samurai" breaks with the convention that the western hero is always superior to the local culture he immerses in. it has been compared to "lawrence of arabia" and "dances with wolves," films in which westerners learn to respect arabs and indians, but this film goes a step further, clearly believing that katsumoto's traditional society is superior to the modernism being unloaded by the americans. katsumoto is the teacher and algren is the student, and the film wonderfully re-creates the patterns and textures of the japanese past; its production design, sets and costumes are astonishing.

watanabe is a deep, powerful presence with great star power. his character and his acting shines over cruise that i just fell in love with him instantly. cruise is already a star, and will be targeted by those predisposed to see him and not his character. from all the reviews i read before i went to see this movie, they were saying how cruise was buried under his co-stars and being outshines by watanabe. they even said that he was miscast for this movie. but after watching the movie with my own eyes, i think he was the magnet of this movie, although, yeah, i agree that watanabe does outshine him.. i just can't get over the wise & handsome samurai god and the fact that he's also good looking, it helps a bunch. :)

the supporting cast is splendid: koyuki quietly stirs as the widow who feels sexual attraction but suppresses it, and oh.. did i mention she is soooo pretty!!! i respect the fact that despite the sexual attraction between the two, knowing that algren killed taka's husband, they never got to show their romantic side, except one small kiss which i think quite appropriate.

if "the last samurai" had ended in a way that was consistent with its tone and direction, it would have been true to its real feelings. but the ending caves in to hollywood requirements, and we feel the air going out of the picture. an art film can trust its audience to follow along to the necessary conclusion. a hollywood ending assumes that the audience caves in at the end, turns dim-witted and sentimental, and must be fed its lollypop. the only thing i thought should change was the fact the the emperor gave his last speech in his thick-accented english. he should've spoken in japanese cuz it would give him more character than just a symbol behind the fighting corrupted council. but in the end, the message was satisfying. we should know where we come from before we want to be like someone else. that's why japan has become one of the powerful country but still look back to the past to always remind them where they are from.

another quote:

emperor: "tell me how katsumoto died"

algren: "i'll tell you how he lived..."



>> rated by :: sLesTa | [ ]

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