Solid, deep spectacle

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2003)

I had been looking forward to this movie for sometime, having been a former resident of Japan and relatively familiar with this chapter of Japanese history. We all have similar experiences of going into a movie with high expectations, either because of the hype, the word of mouth or some other reason only to come away disappointed and wondering really what the fuss was all about. It did not disappoint me despite my high expectations. Leading up to it, I've heard comparisons to Dances With Wolves and there are some similarities in the story, but another comparison I overheard was that it was similar to Braveheart. A fitting comparison, however, the supporting characters in Samurai are developed well enough to make for a much deeper and richer movie than Braveheart was in my opinion. The action scenes, whether hand-to-hand combat or the larger scale battles were vivid and there were a few homages to Kurosawa and his
cinematographer throughout the movie as well. Brilliant.