great movie, a "must see"

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2004)

Despite other people's opinion I found this movie to be quite entertaining. It seems to me that being a great Hollywood movie has become something bad these days. Some say "Ahh, this is dances with wolves". I find this to be a shallow perspective for such a movie.
And now to the movie itself. Though it is quite long (2 and a half hours) it did keep me quiet (which is difficult). The acting is great especially in the part of Tom Cruise who delivers again and of Ken Watanabe (Katsumoto) which manages to portray a samurai quite well. Also Koyuki (Taka) plays her part with excellence.
The story is captivating and although it does resemble "Dances with Wolves" you have to appreciate the depicting of the japanese culture and mentality of the samurai.
This is a story of an american captain who's experience in the Custer battles grant him the opportunity to train the japanese army in a war against the samurai who do not agree with the views of a young (fooled) emperor who decides to make Japan a modern country.
(mild spoilers) After being captured by the samurai, Cruise's character starts to appreciate their culture based on honour and dedication to a higher cause and in his own words "I can not help destroy that wich i have come to love",which pretty much sums it up (yeah right). (end of mild spoilers)
You will have to pay attention to all the symbols that the movie presents.
Someone much smarter than i am (who's name i unfortunatelly forgot) said: "Art is the way the artist depicts something that he has seen with his own eyes." and in my opinion Edward Zwick is an artist here. So even though some will say that this is a "been there, seen that" movie I say "Go and see it. It's worth it"
I give it a 4.5 out of 5