An American military advisor embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy after he is captured in battle.
Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: John Logan (story), John Logan (screenplay).
Stars: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly.
Storyline
In the 1870s, Captain Nathan Algren, a cynical veteran of the American Civil war who will work for anyone, is hired by Americans who want lucrative contracts with the Emperor of Japan to train the peasant conscripts for the first standing imperial army in modern warfare using firearms. The imperial Omura cabinet's first priority is to repress a rebellion of traditionalist Samurai -hereditary warriors- who remain devoted to the sacred dynasty but reject the Westernizing policy and even refuse firearms. Yet when his ill-prepared superior force sets out too soon, their panic allows the sword-wielding samurai to crush them. Badly wounded Algren's courageous stand makes the samurai leader Katsumoto spare his life; once nursed to health he learns to know and respect the old Japanese way, and participates as advisor in Katsumoto's failed attempt to save the Bushido tradition, but Omura gets repressive laws enacted- he must now choose to honor his loyalty to one of the embittered sides when ...
User Reviews
The Last Samurai is a strictly by-the-numbers samurai epic set in 1876-1877 Japan. All the necessary ingredients are here - beautiful Japanese landscapes and costumes, larger than life battlefield sequences, and eastern philosophy.Although the pageantry is not as beautiful as such samurai epics as "Heaven and Earth", it is more than adequate.
Do not, however go into this film expecting "Kill Bill", grindhouse type swordplay nor the poignancy of a Kurosawa piece. Instead, "The Last Samurai" occupies the middle ground; a human story of one Westerner learning to embrace another culture kind of a mixture of "Dances With Wolves" and "Shogun", films from which it derives almost directly. And this is the films greatest flaw. It is utterly predictable. No spoilers here, we all know what happens to the samurai. If not, the title ought to give you a clue. Every scene is one that you were expecting to see. And the ending is the ending you expect.
But Zwick and co. still manage to weave an engaging story with panache, and a climactic (despite it's predictability) ending, and that is why "The Last Samurai" is such a great film. As the Zen saying goes, "Success is a journey, not a destination". It is equally applicable to the samurai in the film, and the film itself.
