A good movie, especially because I didn't really expect great things

Rating: 7/10 (29 June 2005)

I had really not great expectations when I saw this movie. I was just waiting to see another Hollywood smoothed show about exotic cultures, without any real compromise, historic accuracy or deep characters -especially when it was Tom Cruise who appeared as main character. I was gratefully surprised when I saw the story showed the least due respect to History, and towards the social and personal conflicts it depicts. Whether it is arguable that the Samurai philosophy is worth defending it, as a war-based style of living, anchored in a dark past disguised in tradition, the plot focus on the positive aspects that were perceived as endangered along the modernization of Japan. Of course, there is room for Western "endophobia", since the bad guy is a Japanese Judas eager to earn money western-style, and as I explained before, it seems that the only way to express Honor and the quest for perfection is a fascist or maoist-like, isolated society. Yet the movie is fair enough to watch at it a second or even a third time. It is entertaining and well made, and it is easy to sympathize with the ideals of the Samurais.