Braveheart with chopsticks

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2004)

This must be the first Tom Cruise movie I've actually paid to see, and I went the day after watching the tediously pretentious Vanilla Sky. Tom has been guzzling the creatine since that, as he's back to his chunky self. He looks good, I grant him that, in Samurai armour and he does get into the physicality that this rather long film occasionally demands of him.
This film is not the story of the 'Real Japan' emerging from its over-extended period of feudalism to become the Pacific imperial power and industrial dynamo it did in the early 20th Century - but how could you examine the complexity of that story in 2 and 1/2 hours? Japan is still a contradictory nation, ritualised, archaic and misunderstood even by itself.
The Last Sumurai is a boy's own adventure, and a colourful and engaging one at that. But it at least attempts to hint at the socio-political context of change in Japan at that specific time and perhaps the way the Americans sowed the seeds of the horrific Pacific War by pandering to the most rapacious interests of Japan's emerging Capitalist class - and then hastily trying to suppress them after the Manchurian occupation of the 1930s that led inevitably to a battle over the mercantilist imperial spoils of the Pacific Rim.
It also makes a deeper point about the fundamentally changing nature of warfare brought about in the middle of the 19th century, a change which has left the tradition of Bushido largely incomprehensible and horrific to us: as all our feelings of war and conflict are filtered through the experience of mechanised, massed warfare.
It may have been a dangerous romanticism, but the spirit of Budo was about the honour involved in the conflict of excellence - where superior skill and spirit would overcome the enemy. The equivalent of our chivalric tradition.
The climax to the file shows the end of this cycle brought about by the machine gun - and the director chose a most potent symbol of that transition. A piece of machinery that an idiot can use to mow down dozens of people in seconds bring about the end of 1000 years of traditional warfare, in the same way the handgun and rifle 'Won the West'.
Where the film missed a trick was by not drawing its hero from the American Civil War which was a pivotal moment in the history of mechanised warfare: the losses sustained on civil war battlefields were proportionately much higher than those in contemporary conflicts like Crimea and brough about the end of the concept of the cavalry charge (used to great cinematic effect at the end of this picture).
Like any good boy's own adventure, the brush is broad, the canvas wide and the cliche employed unapologetically, usually with a sweeping background score. The samurai warlord's eye is caught by the trapped tiger spirit of the captured American....the warrior 'poet' reveals his love of the perfect blossom...the widow falls in love with her husband's killer....the captive refuses to be bowed and holds onto his Jo stick despite being pummelled into the mud.
It's inevitable then that he goes native, conquers his drink problem, starts wearing hakamas and practising his Katana Kata in the soft morning light. And of course, there has to be the moment of epiphany where he risks his own life to save that of his erstwhile captor.
The lure of exotic Japanese culture and the appeal of Bushido to an American officer is supportable: millions around the globe continue to respond to the echoes of its charms through modern martial arts. The reality is that the Japanese would be rather less interested in his Gaijin ways.
I am not a martial arts movie fan, so can make no comparisons. However, I was looking for examples of my own art Jiu Jitsu, and there was a bit of realistic choreographed grappling. More kata with different weapons would have been good. However, capturing the essence of the zen way of fighting with 'no mind' was a good point to make and remake through the movie, rather than just convey the idea that Cruise sharpens up his sowrd-swinging skills by practise alone.
The fight scene climax bears inevitable comparison with Gibson's Braveheart, not least as they both employ a slightly dubious fire-trap mechanism to even seemingly impossible odds. Last Samurai, I would say, is an inferior rendition in cinematography terms, as although the numbers involved were comparable, the Scots movie seems heartier in its violence and more imaginative in its shots. Gallons of ketchup in each though, and the armour is very nice.
It might have been more honourable film-making had Cruise taken a few bullets in the final reel rather than be the only guy on horseback to apparently make it through the hail of fire with nothing more than a gamey leg, but there was a final scene to think of. 'Maybe his died of his injuries' was about as vague as his contract probably allows.