Samurai cinema as portrayed by Tom Cruise

Rating: Null/10 (8 December 2003)

I walked into this one with 0 expectations. I do like Tom Cruise as an actor and actually think he is underrated in that category, but as soon as the end credits rolled and the lights went up I hit the moment of clarity....
that this movie is just like dances with wolves, except with swords.
I really hope somewhere down the line that whorywood one day realises audiences are growing tired of another movie in which a white man infiltrates a foreign culure, chews it, and spits back out in the faces of those whose lifestyle is "celebrated". This I say as a great fan of samurai cinema and culture in general. It's just silly seeing this dude lecturing a Samurai army on how to be one!
I know it's just a movie, and it's not a bad movie. But the cliches stick out like a sore thumb and what it needed was an artist's touch to subvert some of these cliches and make a more interesting film. To it's credit, it's got good not great photography and a vast setting that 100 million can buy. What is missing is soul and purpose. It feels more of a producer's vision than a director's vision up there. Edward Zwick is a good director, but somehow it feels like a hackjob.
Let me take a moment to call out Tarantino on his onerrated "Kill Bill". That was another good movie that nevertheless has the good parts bogged down by a filmmaker whom is desparatelly trying to top the very filmmakers he's trying to emulate...All this yields diminishing returns.
Filmmakers in japan work with a fraction of the budgets and resources these brats have and are able to produce films in the same genre that are far more satisfying and free from the constraints of formulas that american audiences are used to. Here the more sensational and manufactured, the better.

I can picture Kurozawa turning over in his grave if he saw these films. These guys can't mess with the god of the samurai epic.
Well those are my two cents. If you want good samurai action rent Yojimbo or The Lone Wolf and Cub series, or you can wait until next year when Miramax releases a butchered version of Takeshi Kitano's very good remake of Zatoichi the blind swordsman.
I really love movies. Just movies that feel like cinema and not shameless product. Now I will watch Yojimbo and marvel at a good movie that earns it's greatness.