A Great Movie

Rating: 9/10 (3 September 2004)

i found the last samurai to be a great film, Tom Cruise puts in a very good performance as Nathan Algren, The direction from Edward Zwick is top notch, there is some great scenery, and it is very insightful in to the people of the samurai.
Ken Watanabe is perfect as Katsumoto, the leader of the samurai that takes Algren prisoner after a battle in the woods, Algren then learns to respect the way of the samurai and helps them in their cause (to stop the Americans modernizing Japan)
The battle scenes in the Last Samurai are very well shot, they are very believable with the amounts of violence that there is, and Edward Zwick refrains from using the type of Samurai sword violence used by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill.
There is also a nice performance by Timothy Spall as Simon Graham, an englishman who helps Algren in many ways, the main way he helps is by translating books about the Samurai for Algren.
A lot of the dialogue is in Japanese, so if you are not prepared for this then it may put you off.
I would recommend this film, The actors are perfect for their roles, the direction is very good and very large battle scenes. 9/10