The Last Samurai (2003) - Movie Details

Captain Woodrow Algren, a Civil War veteran travels to Japan where he begins to teach the empire in the ways of modern warfare. This modernization marks the end of feudal society as well as the end of the samurai culture, as the emperor's new army prepares to destroy the honorable soldiers. Algren has no problem with this until he is captured and learns the warrior's honor code....

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Movie Review

Tom Cruise stars in The Last Samurai, an epic war drama about the last days of old Japan before Western civilization sunk its teeth into it for good. The movie has everything one wants - action, drama and romance - but does it have what it takes to combine them all? Full movie review »

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Comments

Anonymous says:

July 10, 2004

I have no clue how you guys got so off topic.

Anyway, I really liked this movie. I saw it in theatres, and bought it when it came out on DVD. Although the combat between the emporer and the samurai really happened, Quatsimoto's rebellion was actually one of the smaller ones, although the most dramatic. No, there where not any ninjas who tried to assassinate him, but there was an attack on his life (although it was much less dramatic).

Nathan Algren was not a historical character, and the United States did not play so large a part in the history of Japan as might be surmised by watching the movie, but it made of a good one nontheless. The combat was amazingly done, but personally I disliked the theme of eliminating all your enemies (i.e. Nathan Algren seeming to only live to kill his one time superior officer in combat. I can understand his reasoning, but they shouldn't have made it such a large underlying theme.

As to Film fan's comment that this was a 'hate film against Western Culture', maybe we need to understand the viewpoints of others once and a while, even if it is a hard thing to do. The Japanese might have been brutal, but what nation, nay what person, can claim that they are completely innocent themselves?

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Anonymous says:

June 26, 2004

This is a great movie. Notice I said movie, not history. Takamori and the Emporer were real, but after that... Just about every thing said by everyone else is true. You'll be superbly entertained, but it ain't a history lesson. BTW, my dog is happy I didn't puke on her, the neighbors granny is kinda hot, and Nathan Algren IS NOT A REAL PERSON.

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Anonymous says:

June 21, 2004

I wept, I laughed, I was angered.. then I vomitted all over my dog. Then he ate my popcorn and I had sex with the neighbors grandmother.... this is how this movie has effected me

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Anonymous says:

June 21, 2004

When having sex with your neighbors grandmother it is a good idea to clean the vomit off your dog and place your popcorn in an empty gas can. This will ensure you find your own G spot.

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Anonymous says:

June 17, 2004

I think there are a lot of people living around Japan that might beg to differ on how enlightened they really were. But the film is a hate film against Western Culture. Cruise runs around bad mouthing his culture and there he is surrounded by patriarchal, violent, parochial japanese crap. It was so false as a film and so kiss ass of the non western culture. Spare me. The Japanese are a brutal feudal military culture. Cruise used the same ten facial expressions he used in every other film he has been in.

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