So, what do we all think of 'The Last Samurai'? [SPOILERS]

Apologies if this has been done before, its only just out here in the UK…

I liked it. I’m not sure about the whole american involvement being so pivotal in the victory, but overall I thought this was one of the best films I’ve seen in a while.

What does everyone else think?

I think…I am going to wait for DVD.

Didn’t like it. Was too long and drawn out in some places. Christ, you’d think Ken would of bled to death before he commited Seppuku (sp) it was drawn out for so long.

I didn’t see it, but the trailers made me giggle. It’s always funny to me when lightweight Tom tries to pretend he’s all serious and stuff.

I liked it, it had some fine action scenes as well as a good story IMO. Remember that part when Algren was in the town at night, surrounded by those sword-weilding dudes? That was an awesome scene!

Yeah, I liked the distinctly ‘dishonourable’ fighting style of the Ninja as well - coolest bit had to be the Samurai warriors riding out of the Forest mists though

Pretty good movie. Tom Cruise wasn’t annoying, Ken Watanabe was excellent (and deserves a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination), and it had ninjas flipping out and killing people!

I liked it much more than the overly-long, overly-serious Dances With Wolves, which if you think about it had an almost identical premise.

I had some severe reservations about it based on the trailer, but I really enjoyed it. I’m not blind to its flaws, particuarly some hazy character motivations and ten minutes at the end that should have been discard, but for me it was a compelling drama, highlighted by an outstanding performance by Ken Watanabe. The setting is more historical myth than historical fact, but in this case I think it succeeded where other movies attempted the same thing and failed miserably. Your mileage may vary.

Great looking but forgetable. For some reason I was rooting for the other side the whole time.

10 minutes into it I was thinking ‘Great. I just walked into Dances With Samurai’. But the movie was so good, I pretty much forgot about all that. I really liked it.

I had a couple of problems with it.

First off, it was probably not the optimal movie to take a whole Native American family to on the day after Christmas. The slaughter flashbacks were a bit much, in that context.

Also… I did NaNoWrimo. For those who don’t know, it’s National Novel Writing Month. Write a novel in a month. The motto: “No Plot? No Problem!” And the well-known recipe for writing something, anything, when you can’t come up with anything and have to pad your daily word count:

Add ninjas.

So here I am, watching this lovely, if somewhat vacuous epic, and in the middle of an idyllic scene in an idyllic village… ninjas. I just about died trying not to laugh.

More objectively, I found the whole movie to be lush, competently-filmed, vaguely interesting, and ultimately forgettable. Dressed-up fluff.

I thought it was pretty great, but had its cheesy moments (SAKE!) and I couldn’t imagine how he survived the 9000 bulletwounds and managed to make it into the emperor’s palace at the end.

I liked-ed-ed a lot. It was a great escape from my mundane world. Samurai fighting with swords, ninjas fighting with…stars? no, they used crossbows. This was a little lame to me. :rolleyes:

However, I want to bring up a point. How realistic does a movie haff to be in order to be entertaining? Not much IMHO. Quit nit picking!

A pretty good movie. Problem is that the mega-blockbuster Last of the Mohicans/Braveheart/Dances With Wolves/Gladiator/Gangs of NY period-piece war epic has become a little overdone. Not all of them are great movies but they all share a couple things in common - visually pleasing, big cast, sweeping scenery and cinematography, epic battle sequences, thousands of extras, a brooding hero, bittersweet victory. Last year alone, we’ve allready had Master & Commander, Last Samuri, Gangs of New York. 2004 we have Cold Mountain and the upcoming Troy, 2 Alexander the Great movies, and an Alamo movie.

I give it the highest praise I can give a Tom Cruise movie:

About half way through, I forgot it starred Tom Cruise. :slight_smile:

So, you had trouble identifying with the violent reactionaries who have started a civil war to maintain the oppressive feudal political system which supported their positions of prestige and wealth?

Weird.

I have a pretty high threshold for willing suspense of disbelief, but that scene really stretched it. Tom Cruise gets hit by as many bullets as his samurai pals, is visibly fountaining blood a few times, then falls off a horse, and yet is feeling well enough so that by the next scene he’s actually capable of walking?!

That said, I loved Ken Watanabe’s performance (Cruise himself was quite solid) and totally dug the ninjas. :smiley:

I had no problems with the direction, acting, or scenery. I’m just oversaturated lately with death-and-destruction epics. And watching the Samurai ride deliberately into guaranteed slaughter while knowing that only Tom would survive was quite predictable.

I enjoyed it quite a bit. Watanabe was great, and Cruise, Sanada and Koyuki were all solid, IMO.

I thought it a bit odd that Cruise could speak better Japanese after four months than the translator could speak after 10-odd years, but hey, it happens.

Yeah… Watanabe aside, this movie was totally slathering on the cliches. I predicted all of the major character deaths within five minutes of their first appearance. :smack: