ygmn Posted July 31, 2004 Share Posted July 31, 2004 What a great movie.... Well acted...great story...interesting Japanese history...sword fights..gatling guns...cannons...visual scenes....temples... This is a movie that ...{not sure how to say this}.... TOM CRUISE was not TOM CRUISE...but the character....ya know? In other TC movies....he seems to do the same things...same facial expressions, words, hand gestures etc etc...so ...ya know it is TC....but in this movie..after about an 15 mins hour...you forget it is TC ....and you are drawn into his character.... I dunno,.....maybe it is just me....but this was good movie.. The special features are pretty good too...as they explain the history of the times....and the making of the movie..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerSix Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 The Last Samurai was a good fantasy movie. Just don't expect to learn anything about Japanese history from it. Hollywood has truly butchered the actual events in the telling of this story. The Meiji government was made out as the "bad guy" while the samurai was propped up as honorable and good. Hardly the case; the samurai was the ruling military class for almost a thousand years, but it ruthlessly existed on the blood, sweat and tears of the other classes. It was 250 years of peace, the rise of the merchant class, a desire to modernize and open its borders to foreigners, and a movement to place the emperor back into a central position of power with the elimination of the Tokugawa shogunate that ultimately lead to the samurai's fall. In reference to Tom Cruise. Well, Tom was still being Tom. Despite the disillusionment in himself and his government, Toms character was nonetheless a Congressional Medal of Honor winner and a war hero. In less than a year, his character somehow becomes the darling of the Meiji emperor, the rebellious daimyo Katsumoto, and the wife and children of the very samurai he kills in the beginning of the movie. Not only that, but he manages to miraculously survive a suicidal attack that wipes out everyone else. And we wont even go into how he, a person that fought against the Japanese government, could then limp in and interrupt a major policy meeting between Japan and the US and ultimately influence its outcome. As Dr. Evil would say: Riiiiiight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edwinr Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 I liked the movie too. Good escapism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMcGoo Posted August 2, 2004 Share Posted August 2, 2004 RangerSix, You are not supposed to notice these minor imperfections in the Last Samurai. It ruins the fairy tale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ygmn Posted August 2, 2004 Author Share Posted August 2, 2004 I did watch the hollywood versus history show on the special features... more like a commercial for the movie...but entertaining... the movie may have been flawed from a purely historical point of view....but I have yet to see one that is correct except for the major parts of MIDWAy hhehehehehe.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted August 2, 2004 Share Posted August 2, 2004 I wrote a review of the movie here, curious to see if anyone agrees with me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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