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The Last Samurai Was supposed to go watch this movie with Jen yesterday...but seeing as how she doesn't much like action movies....heh... So seeing as how that didn't work out too well, I figured that I'd eventually watch it when it came out on dvd...but even that didn't turn out right as my sister just up and took me to watch it earlier today. First off, the movie itself...obviously, a few spoilers here and there so...yar... The story, to me, was technically very simple. An american soldier is disenchanted with his own countrymen after being commanded to massacre a small indian village that didn't even have any braves to protect it...they slaughtered the women and the children without mercy, enough to turn Tom Cruise, our protagonist into a raging alcoholic in an effort to spend his nights in a drunken stupor rather than racked by his guilt and nightmares. This is the man that is chosen to go to Japan and train a regiment of the Emporer's guard into a western fighting unit, training them with modern rifles and the old 'take turns shooting each other' style of fighting that I STILL find utterly ridiculous. There was a great moment at that point of the movie where when ordered to march on the renegade group of samurai, Cruise shows his commanding officers that the soldiers aren't ready by commanding one of them to shoot him. I thought that was rather well done... They march to battle...and there's a battle scene in a foggy forest...it was great to see the samurai band ride out of the shadows, dressed in the traditional style and armor, complete with rather fearsome demon masks. It was very stylish to see them gallop slowly out of the surrounding fog and mist...like ghosts from a morbid fairy tale. The battles...they were well done. I was wondering how the samurai would portray a real threat considering the superior firepower that the Emporer's guards would have but in my imaginings...I forgot that the guns of the time were more of a ....well, REALLY slow to fire sort of affair. Needless to say, in the first real battle of the movie, the regiment was slaughtered and Nathan (Cruise) is taken captive due to his ferocity in battle, single-handedly fending off four men before he is finally put down. He is taken to the village of the samurai band, where his wounds are tended to by Taka, the wife of one of the warriors that he took down in the woods. In the village, he comes to learn the way of the samurai...how they live, how they think and so on and so on. There a couple great moments at this stage of the movie...I especially love the part where Nathan first takes up a wooden sword. Apparently, it was forbidden for him so another guy came to make him leave it. But time and time again, he refuses, gets the shit beat out of him, gets up and so on and so on. It portrays him as having such an indomitable spirit and it's...it's just sooo...iunno. Courageous? Awe-inspiring? Something along those lines. I loved watching them practice. With wooden swords, a group of men running through a simple kata as one, to see men practicing archery from horseback or even on foot on hilltops. It just looked so....awesome. I'll get more into this in another entry. The movie goes on, the moments where Nathan has little monologues as he reads aloud what he's written in his journal overlaid by constant scenes of life in the samurai village. They're really nice...especially with Zimmer's music playing softly in the background. THe climactic final battle comes and goes with customary flair and tactical brilliance but the outcome was pretty much decided from the outset. Samurai's were horribly outnumbered and the enemy, again, had superior firepower. But damn...if there was ever a 'right' way to die, that was it. Hopelessly outnumbered...absolutely NO chance to win, or even to take just one more enemy life with you, do you give up? Surrender? NO. Fight on. Force them to take you down. The fact that Nathan lives on in the end didn't really bother me, it was a function of the story but damn...if there was ever truly an honorable way to die...that was it. Just a brief mention of a couple more scenes...at the culmination of Nathan's training with the sword, he finally manages to battle that guy to a draw, his...pride and the villager's sense of astonishment is palpable and just great. The next one...Joyce actually told me about it. We were talking about it once a while ago and she mentioned that there was a really sexy scene where the female lead dresses Tom Cruise in the clothes and armor. Back then, for the life of me, I couldn't understand how a scene where MORe clothes are being added could be construed as sexy...until I saw the movie o.O There was just a really...intimate and close feeling that overlaid the scene. It was surprising...and that lady, the one who plays Taka...totally backs up my point about hair. When her hair is up, she just seems like every other actress or woman...but when she lets her hair down....DAMN, in my eyes, she's gorgeous o.O So overall? An excellent movie...well worth every cent and just...captivating in it's simplicity. Tom Cruise...he's a great actor when he finds the right role and this, I think, was one of them. . . . His rugged good looks and natural charm didn't deter from that either... >.> XD |