A film that demands our surrender to its film-making, acting, story, and above all its romantic vision of a forgotten world!

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2006)

This film was no doubt the best film of 2003. It is totally underrated and cheated in the Oscar academy! It is a film that actually has talent and beauty to it from its story to its vision of ancient Japan that has been swept into modernization.
the film is about two men. there's Kotsumoto and Nathan Algren. Kotsumoto (Ken Watanbe) is a samurai leader who witnesses his country being overtaken by modernization which leads to a change in the whole country from the new rising power of the Emperor Meiji, who took power for himself over Japan. Kotsumoto and the other samurai feels this is immoral and a disgrace to the motherland of Japan and pollutes the traditions and cultures of Japan. he and the other samurai must restore it to where it originally was before the Americans arrived.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is a drunken, ex-war veteran who drinks to relieve himself from a massacre he was a part of against the Native Americas. By fate, he meets a war friend (Billy Connoly) who found a job for the both of them, which is to train the Japanese army against the samurai, and was arranged by Nathan's old, cruel commander he has a score to settle with (Tony Goldwyn), and a greedy Japanese political figure named Omara.
Here, Nathan goes on a journey into the modern rising Japan. As he trains the army without much of a success, they are set on a mission to wipe out the samurai in the mountains. They are ambushed, most of the imperial soldiers are killed, and Nathan is captured by the samurai. Here he meets the samurai leader Kotsumoto and develops a strong relationship with him based upon the samurai code, the meanings of life, and their fates and destinies.
The Last Samurai is a powerfully moving film with some of the best acting i have ever seen since the film Gladiator. Ken Watanbe deserved the Oscar for his role of Kotsumoto. The cinematography was beautiful, and depicts the reality of japan's beautiful views of land. the costumes and set-decorations were fabulous, the battle sequences were well choreographed and intense, the story was gripping, and above all the score by Hans Zimer uplifted the film to a scale of grandeur. Easily a **** out of **** If only more films were like this one. This is why we see the movies!