The Last Samurai: Reviewed
Here are my biases:
I lived in Japan 5 years.
I’ve studied Japan for going on 20.
I know who the Meiji Emperor was and why he was restored.
I know who unified Japan and the saying that schoolchildren are taught to remember it: "Oda cut the wheat, Toyotomi kneaded the dough, and Tokugawa baked it."
Kurosawa Akira made the best samurai movies ever. Without a doubt. Don’t believe me? See Seven Samurai and Hidden Fortress.
About Tom Cruise:
He was great in Top Gun and Risky Business.
Other than that, the man can’t act. Sorry, but he can’t.
And there lies my problem with the Last Samurai. Watching Cruise in this movie was painful - seriously, it was almost embarrassing. I have seen better performances at being drunk by high school girls sipping their first 3.2 beer. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the directors of his movies who are afraid to get him to emote without being fired or what. But the truth is, while he cuts a handsome figure wearing a yukata and carrying a blade, Tom Cruise simply can’t act.
There were some great moments though. The samurai came through the fog wearing their armor and helmets on horses - appearing like the gods they were. It was a wonderful scene, and easily conveyed the fear that must have been felt by the musket carrying farmer-conscripts of the Imperial army. Ken Watanabe played an excellent Katsumoto, and the supporting performances by the Japanese casts were delightful. There was a strong Kurosawa-esque moment where Cruise gets a lesson taught by Katsumoto’s right hand & silent man in the rain. It was supposed to show Cruise’s perserverence, but did so while harkening back to Kurosawa’s classic Samurai epics.
But like so many American movies, this one should have ended 20 minutes before it actually did. Cruise should not have left Katsumoto’s side - and if you see the movie you’ll know what I mean. The movie should have ended right then and there, fulfilling the Thermopylae story.
Also, and this is the historian coming out in me, the reformers weren’t the bad guys during the Meiji period. They realized that Japan could either modernize or be carved up and colonized by the European powers just like China. They didn’t just do it for self-aggrandizment. In fact, many samurai had gone into shopkeeping and trade during the Tokugawa period anyway and benefited from the modernization. Such common names as Matsushita, Mitsui and Sumitomo are Samurai names.
Bottom line: This was a poor copy of Dances With Wolves set at an extraordinary time in an extraordinary place. It’s a damn shame that the movie wasn’t better.
