I can’t wait to see this latest abortion from the shrimp-like Tom Cruise! Tom as a mercenary in Japan? What’s that all about…of course, he doesn’t lose his head…he falls oin love with a beautiful geisha! I can’t wait to see the gyrations of the camera man–to avois showing how short Tom is! Anyway, my real question: the damn flic isn’t due out till December 5th! Why such a long advertising cycle?
The story looks hackneyed and stale-sort of a warmed-over “Madame Butterfly” Any idea on how badly this’ll tank?
They’ve been advertising it like crazy because they want it to be in the Oscar race. They’re getting the word out there to raise publich interest in the movie and to get people to talk about it and to go watch it when it does come out. I don’t think it’ll tank at all actually.
I think the story looks rather interesting despite the fact that it stars Tom Cruise. The epic battles look like they’ll be good, I like what I’ve heard of the storyline, and Cruise has been very passionate about this thing from the beginning. As much as I dislike him, I have to admit that he does occasionally turn in a wonderful acting performance. I actually haven’t talked to anyone yet who thought it was such a bad idea.
I don’t know much about the movie, but judging by the trailer, it looks like The Last Samurai is set during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, when Saigo Takamori, Okubo Toshimichi, and Kido Koin , leaders of powerful samurai families from Kyushu, who had helped overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate 9 years earlier and had served under the Meiji government, rebelled against what they saw as corruption of the nation. The rebel armies fought with swords against a newly-formed peasant army that used rifles. Predictably, the samurai were soundly defeated, and the last major threat to modernization was crushed.
So Tom Cruise’s character will be fighting for the forces of reactionary conservatism that made Japan defenseless and weak against the tide of modernization that would propel Japan from medieval feudalism into the front rank of industrial powers in a mere 30 years (from the Meiji restoration to the Japanese victory over the Russians in 1904).
I can’t wait for the news stories to come out about how suddenly Tom saved a couple from a burning boat or…better…burning saki bar…at the last minute.
Gosh…what are the odds?
Did anyone else notice that the trailer (at the movies) for the Last Samurai has more bass than anything probably ever? I mean, I am used to the theater shaking during some of the action previews but this was ridiculous. I thought the whole building was going to collapse.
That said, I have to admit it was very effective at getting your heart pumping and making you want to chop off people’s heads with a sword. I don’t think this movie will tank either… as long as they have the same bass line in the film.
I hated the trailer for this movie, and not just because I find Tom Cruise creepily unappealing. In trailer it looked like he was imitating Viggo M. with sword, beard & it made me laugh. Please don’t fall for this, stupid Academy
That’s it, I’m calling him Cruise-san from now on. (Apologies to real Japanese everywhere.)
I think the best thing I heard about this was from a guy sitting next to me during the movie trailer’s airing who proclaimed “How the *F#K is Tom Cruise the Last Samurai?”
I like the historical movies, and the battles should be awesome, but come one, what the hell is this guy doing in this film?
When I saw it took me five minutes to realize it WASN’T Vigo-San.
This movie looks like crap. I shall vomit if forced to watch it. And it has the “White man must go to Asia and make the asians do stuff because asians are too stupid to do anything without help from the white man” thing going on, which is ticking off some of my asian friends.
And they should just give the Oscar to Lost in Translation anyway.
Hey, if they can film him next to Nicole Kidman (who’s pretty tall), I’m sure they can manage to pull off a film where he stars with a bunch of tiny Japanese people.
We’ll see if that’s how it turns out. I think your statement may be taking too much for granted. At least wait until we learn more about it.
How is this different from the movie “Shogun”?
My thought process upon hearing about this movie went exactly like this:
Samurai? YES!
Tom Crusie? …NO!
conflicting emotions rage an epic battle through my head
Finally, it’s settled: Meh…
Loosely translated, “Meh” can be taken to mean: “I guess I’ll watch it if I hear it’s good, but other than that…”
I hate to break it to your asian friends but quite a few Europeans went over to Japan in the late 1800’s and helped them to modernize. And no, the Japanese could not have modernized that quickly without outside help.
Marc
Shogun, is based, very roughly on a real person, Will Adams, who was shipwrecked in Japan in 1611 and spent the rest of his life there in service to the government.
But I guarantee you that there were no short, aging movie stars leading the conservative samurai against the Meiji troops in the 1870s.
i know that, but i was referring to the movie having them led revolutions because the Japanese themselves didn’t have the cajones to do anything but sit around being Japanese.
Silly me. I thought that just the trailer had come out. 
Anyway, it is certainly possible that that is how the movie is, but unless we’ve read the script or seen a rough cut, it seems a tad premature.
I too am sitting and waiting to find out about the story, because frankly there better be a darn good reason to justify putting a non-asian in the role. Was Chow Yun Fat too busy or something?. Even if there is a good reason for Mr. Cruise to be there, it still shows the kind of backward thinking that exists in Hollywood, that they think that they have to choose a story that has a nice, freindly, handsome white person at the centre before anyone will want to go and watch it. I only wish Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune were still around, to show these chumps how it’s really done.
I don’t have a cite but I thought it was based on, or at least, inspired by, a true story…? I don’t know where I might have gotten that. Perhaps the story in Premiere, which I can’t find now. In any case, I get the impression that Cruise’s character learns from the Samurai, not the other way around.
Anyway, I’m as fervent an anti-$cientologist as you could ever want to meet, and it KILLS me that Cruise is a $cieno, he just kinda seems smarter than that. Obviously not. With so much information about the cult readily available, only a head-in-the-sand moron would belong to such a racket.
That said, this movie looks GREAT, and all the advance buzz I’ve heard is way positive. There have been several sneak previews, and it premiered in Tokyo already. I won’t pay full price for any $cieno-starring film, but I think I’ll be there opening day at matinee prices.
Forget Cruise. The music, the costumes, the cinematography, the history (true or not, it does give a glimpse into Samurai lifestyle) and the New Zealand scenery are enough to get my butt into the seat. If it’s as good as the buzz says, that’ll be icing.
The director is Ed Zwick, who among other things, directed (some decent, some great):
**Siege, The (1998)
Courage Under Fire (1996)
Legends of the Fall (1994)
Leaving Normal (1992)
Glory (1989)
About Last Night… (1986)
Special Bulletin (1983) (TV) (as Ed Zwick) **
The music is by Hans Zimmer (too many credits to list).
The cinematography is by John Toll (even the bad movies look pretty good) who shot:
**Vanilla Sky (2001)
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001)
Almost Famous (2000)
Simpatico (1999)
Thin Red Line, The (1998)
Braveheart (1995)
Legends of the Fall (1994) **
The costumes are by Ngila Dickson. Many of us know her from:
**Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
Heavenly Creatures (1994) **
If this is even halfway decent, and I suspect it’ll be much more than that, it should get several Oscar nominations.
I loved that movie! I hope the Oscar goes to The Return of the King, but I also hope the wonderful LiT gets several nominations, including Picture, Director, Cinematography and Actor.
Ooops, I kept getting errors while previewing, so I’d go off and do something else. I came back and hit Submit, but I forgot to change something. I double-checked and the film has not officially premiered yet. Clips were shown in Tokyo, that’s all. There have been sneak previews though.