THE LAST SAMURAI

Version: 2004 Warner 2 disc widescreen

Where to begin... I first saw this one in my 10th grade World Culture class. Yep, we convinced the teacher to show it. And man it was worth it. I even got into an argument with one of my friends as to whether Cruise was the film's namesake "Last Samurai" (hint: NO).

Let me clear one thing: I hate Tom Cruise. He is annoying and he named his daughter "pickpocket" (Suri = 掏摸 = "pickpocket"). Every movie he is in his character is annoying. But this one isn't so bad. His Japanese sounds a little weird, he makes this....face when he is fighting, and he looks a little funny when he cries. Over all though, you can ignore it. Ken Watanabe totally steals my attention when he's on screen. I liked him in Memoirs of a Geisha too (but he was underused in Batman Begins).

I should warn you, the storyline is FICTION. THIS DID NOT REALLY HAPPEN THE WAY THE FILM PORTRAYS IT! The Meiji Restoration is real, the rebellions against modernization are real, but everything has been skewed to fit the American audience. The Algren character is based off of Frenchmen who fought amongst samurai. Katsumoto is based off of a real samurai, but the real one actually used the modern weapons alongside the traditional ones. Actually, Americans had little to do with the start of modernization because they were busy with the civil war. So this is a history film in the same way that 300 is a history film: the basic details are there, but you know it didn't happen that way.

Just how the hell did Algren learn Japanese so fast?! That's my only complaint. More on that would have been cool. The battles were beyond awesome, so I have no complaint with that. I'm so used to battles being either completely censored or overly gory, so this one being just right makes me happy. The music is good, too. I also like the bilingual dialogue.

I would have to say Ujio and Katsumoto are my favorite characters. Ujio is sort of funny in his attempts to make Algren's life hell. I like his bull horn helmet.

Go buy this movie because you will want to watch it more than once.