Dances With Samurai

Rating: 4/10 (17 June 2004)

It's part Braveheart and part Dances With Wolves, this movie deemed both insane and not insane enough.
Tom Cruise, in what might be one of his better performances, plays an unhappy Union soldier on the skids who is hired by the Japanese government to come down to Japan and train their men in the way of modern warfare and help them destroy the stubborn samurai who refuse to bow down, namely their charismatic leader Ken Watanabe. But Tom gets captured and he eventually falls in love with the Samurai way of life and the ideals that Ken and his cohorts cling to. He also falls in love with Ken's sister, who's husband he killed.
Does it end triumphantly or tragically? Alas I cannot say.
Part of me really wanted to enjoy this film and to a certain end that part of me did enjoy the film. The film is far from perfect but it's not bad for what it is even if it does borrow a lot of elements from earlier films and restages them. Ken Watanabe is very compelling even when he spouts bad dialogue (one can only imagine how many more diverse roles he's played in his native Japan).