good movie- wont do well in USA b/c of questions it raises- like Minority Report

Rating: 8/10 (5 December 2003)

Like Minority Report, which raised political questions that most Americans would like to stay oblivious about- this movie, too, will probably not do as well as it should in front of an audience that does not want to face its past and present in its massacre of traditional people's and the politics of trade and the economics of war (the Americans trying to sell a unilaterally profitable treaty to the Japanese emperor and the aim of selling arms).
Gorgeous movie- and while I have read some of the criticisms (too short character development of the Tom Cruise character; largely humorless; Braveheart-ish) I tend to disagree with each one of these.

1- They may not have shown each second of his character development, but the course of time narrated during the characters time in "captivity" can lead us to conclude that it did not happen in 60 seconds.
2- War is humorless, but an audience fed on scatological humor of the usual feel-good crap churned out by Hollywood EXPECTS it.
3- Most heroes in most stories are all versions of the same archetypal hero.

See it even if it makes you uncomfortable. Truth usually does.