for americans!

Rating: 2/10 (11 January 2004)

First I was a little bit reluctant to watch this film but since my friend had to go to the army the next day I agreed finally to go with him. The film was not as bad as I expected when I entered the cinema.
The story was quite good told. But there were certain things that really annoyed me. The whole movie was too much Americanized. Sometimes I asked myself how many times we can bear to see these good looking swaggering heroes from the west who are so much skilled again. I mean, is it normal that one can learn such a difficult language like Japanese within e few weeks or that he can fight like a samurai without much training? At the beginning tom cruise killed like six or seven samurai even though he was seriously wounded. E few minutes later he had problems fighting against a young child with a wooden sword and another half an hour later he was one of the best fighters in among the whole population of the samurai. What is the explanation of this phenomenon? That he is handsome? Or that he is an American? How many times is Hollywood trying to use the halo-effect(which means that we generalise from a specific features such as physical attractiveness to other features such as skills, unconsciously) again before people get tired of it?
******spoilers*******
But as I have said above the story was no bad in every aspect. I liked the way they showed how old values und standards where wiped out by the invasion of the western culture and the fear of the Japanese people to loose the big part of the cake and for that reason to forget who they were und to sell their own customs and their own past. But what was the worst part of the whole movie was the ending. If it had ended on the battle filed it would have been much better. Why did the last samurai had to be an American? I'm not saying that because I don't like Americans, they are not better nor are they worse than others but I think I would be a little bit ashamed if I was one of them. Would not be glad or even proud to see always and all the time one of my own people being the hero and the best and the greatest and superior to all others and the nicest guy on earth even though it must be very easy and entertaining to identify oneself with him. Maybe it would have been better if the Japanese had made this film by their own because I think that it is an important one. But then it would not be such a great success because we wouldn't understand the motives because they would not be adapted to our schemes of culture behaviour and honour. Well that's life. The last shot when cruise met his girl again was dumb too because it made one feel a little bit that the whole thing was a film about the life of a certain man and not about the lost of old values for economical reasons and the dark sides of `globalisation' which is what the movie really is about.
But if you do not care about such things I can recommend you this flick without any remorse. Personally I give it (5/10). It is a solid piece of cinematic entertainment. Solid because it is a film like hundreds of others..