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| Release Date: |
December 5, 2003 |
| On DVD: |
May 4, 2004 |
| Genre: |
Action, Drama, War, Romance |
| Running Time: |
144 minutes |
| MPAA Rating: |
Rated R for strong violence and battle sequences. |
| Director: |
Edward Zwick |
| Writer: |
John Logan |
| Cast: |
John Koyama, Koyuki, Aoi Minato, Shichinosuke Nakamura, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shun Sugata, Scott Wilson, Shin Koyamada, Sosuke Ikematsu, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Timothy Spall, William Atherton, Seizo Fukomoto, Masato Harada, Togo Igawa, Tom Cruise |
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. Read more
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Movie Review
Grade: A-
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? Read the full movie review
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User Comments & Reviews
Excellently done., by Shakathian
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?
Category: General | Reply
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