"A very powerful and touching story"

Rating: Null/10 (11 May 2004)

This is the most powerful performance I've yet seen for Tom Cruise. Cruise
plays an American Civil War Veteran Capt. Nathan Algren, turned weapons
trainer who is hired by the emperor of Japan to teach his troops modern weapon skills so they can fight off the last remaining Samurai. However Capt Algren is captured by Samurai during battle and lives with them for nearly a year in which he learns how important the Samurai warrior code is and forces him to fight to defend a culture he was hired to help destroy.
This movie obviously contains a lot of fighting and killing but it does contain an interesting story of who the Samurai were and about the code of honor which
was so important. This film makes the Samurai seam as brave and fearless as
those soldiers who bravely died during the first and second world wars and like the Samurai their fighting and deaths were legendary.