"The Last Samurai"

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2005)

It seems I have only been given a few occasions in my life where I am genuinely "in" a film. Edward Zwick's "The Last Samurai" embodies the elements of the rousing historical action epic and strong human drama so perfectly I found myself unable to turn away from the glorious battle and sentimental character-driven plot. Where most films of this particularly high caliber sacrifice themselves to Hollywood conventions ¾ of the way through, "The Last Samurai" remains consistent and stays with you, even long after the credits and action have ceased.
One should also take into account the West's immense fascination with the East too. Samurai pictures, as relayed to Western culture most popularly by Akira Kurosawa, and martial arts flicks from the 1970s, have been the focal point of an intense study by American film-goers in the last half-century. "The Last Samurai" remains faithful to the myths of Japanese swordsmen by building on the mystifying qualities that made them so fascinating in the first place and also by carefully shying away from stereotypes.
Add to that, it has a magnificent leading actor, Tom Cruise, who is no stranger to action cinema and really threw himself into his character of Capt. Nathan Algren by training in various sword-fighting techniques and learning to speak much of his dialogue in Japanese. Similar to "Dances With Wolves" (1990) and in the tradition of fish-out-of-water tales, Cruise's Algren is the disillusioned outsider from American civilization who wholeheartedly adopts the ways and the culture of a "savage" people and eventually participates in a grand epic battle against his former walk-of-life.
As the film opens, Algren is already a highly decorated Civil War veteran, who of course is suffering from open wounds of his battle time experiences. Living on the bottle and reduced to retelling fabrications of epic battlefield skirmishes (chiefly General George Custer's famous last stand), he makes an a** out of himself on stage and becomes a huge embarrassment to the theater owners.
His days as a soldier are not long behind him, however, as he is called to journey to Japan by Colonel Bagley (Tony Goldwyn) and a man named Omura (Masato Harata) to aid the Japanese government in crushing a rebellion of the samurai led by Katsumoto (Academy Award-nominee Ken Watanabe, in his first English-speaking American performance). The emperor (Shichinosuke Nakamura), a young and indecisive man, has grown an immense fascination with all things Western, which has put the samurai, who have a 900-year history of serving the Japanese government, and their glorious past written out of future accounts of Japan's culture.
Algren's job in Japan is to train and act as an adviser for the emperor's army. After very little time training them, Bagley takes the opportunity to see them in battle; Algren says that they are not ready, as proved in a scene that is reminiscent of Zwick's own "Glory" (1989). In Japan's hills, a skirmish breaks out between the army and samurai, and in the ensuing chaos Algren is captured.
I have always admired films that embrace their subject matter like this one does, and I have to admit I have always admired films about the outsider who embraces an alien culture. Algren writes in his journal, about how he comes to question what he is doing there and how the Japanese and their culture are not so primitive. He engages in deep philosophical conversations with Katsumoto; for the first months Algren is in captivity, he does not speak to Katsumoto, as he still feels his allegiance to his own native America. But he comes to question that loyalty as he witnesses how disciplined and loyal the Japanese are, and how the questioning of own his values eventually makes him comrades with Katsumoto.
Where movies like this have failed, the Japanese would be very ignorant and would warm themselves up to the way of the White man and Algren will be the one to lead them to victory; that does not happen here. Algren is merely a participant in something far greater than himself and just as he had been assigned to do with the Americans, he acts an adviser to Katsumoto's samurai.
While in captivity, Algren, the outsider, is eventually welcomed into Katsumoto's household and is introduced to his family. Katsumoto's teenage son takes a strong liking to him but Katsumoto's sister-in-law, whose husband Algren killed in battle, is not so forgiving. Eventually Algren finds himself warming up to his captors and their dedication to preserving the Samurai code.
"The Last Samurai" is really one of those movies that doesn't seem to get the praise it deserves. There are many breathtaking action sequences (none of which are stylized in any fashion) and you will not find any trace of the "modern" action movie in this film.
We are shown here, the way of a dying culture - the samurai. In this film, they are presented to indeed have a strong and dedicated ethic of preserving their history, a glorious history that will be forgotten as Japan moves forward into its modernization with the West and director Zwick shows us this.
The performers are excellent, especially Cruise but even more compelling are many of the Japanese actors. Ken Watanabe is simply amazing in his first American role. We actually believe in his strength and dedication to preserving the samurai code. Cruise takes on the role of acting as Katsumoto's outsider general in the film's final, spectacular action sequence between the Japanese military and the samurai.
"The Last Samurai" is a beautiful and rousing epic that will certainly live on as a fantastic samurai film; it almost rivals any Kurosawa action-set piece (just kidding). But "The Last Samurai" does raise the bar as far as portraits of the East go in Western cinema. If "The Last Samurai" is remembered as the grand epic it surely is, then the East will get its respect in due time.
10/10