Phantastic!

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2006)

Not being a big fan of Tom Cruise, I put off watching this movie for a couple of years. Now I had the chance to borrow the DVD from a friend, and I just watched it, amazed all the way through. Dammit, this is a movie that delivers! It is the most emotionally moving film I have seen for ages (well, since Monday, anyway... but that was a special case) - I lost count of the many, many scenes that made me misty-eyed -, and at the same time it was a great action movie, containing plenty of both swordplay and gun-play. Not to mention history. It focused on a crucial historical moment, where the old Samurai ways of feudal Japan had to give way to the vagaries of the modern world and its modern weapons and dirty politics.
The acting was all-round great, and the production values were simply astounding. A movie of incredible beauty and power.
As far as the debate on whether it's an art movie as such; no, I don't feel there is a "high art" aspect to this movie. I think of it as a serious - and seriously good - movie, produced by people who understood how to make drama convincing, and who were experts on cinematography. But I will say that it comes CLOSE to being an art movie; it certainly has enough poetic moments, both visually and emotionally, to make such a claim stick. But a movie doesn't have to be an art movie in order to be good. The Last Samurai doesn't suffer from not being an art movie. It is the movie it is supposed to be; a highly competent and evocative one.
The only reason I don't give this movie a 10 out of 10 is that it romanticized the Samurai too much. In reality, they too were embroiled in dirty politics, and most often never questioned authority (and if they thought that their authority figures were all honorable, they were fooling themselves). But it is true there is a certain purity in their concept of honor, and in many ways that honor was the basis and the substance of their civilization. The movie does a good job presenting this honor from its best angle, and as a work of art it is most certainly entitled to do so.
A triumphant and beautiful achievement. I will buy the DVD tomorrow.
9 out of 10.