The Last Samurai
This past Thanksgiving, I got reacquainted with the films of Akira Kurosawa, the master of Japanese cinema, by watching his best colorized film, "Ran", a Japanese version of Shakespeare's King Lear. His balance of still imagery and the realistic bloody scenes of the samurai truly describes the visionary he was. Kurosawa and a variety of other films influenced director Edward Zwick's latest creation, "The Last Samurai".

In it, Tom Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren, a Civil War soldier now doing nothing in the year 1876 except for being a spokesman for the gun company Winchester for $25 a week. An opportunity arises to train the Japanese army into a modern fighting machine and Algren is forced to take it. Japan faces a civil war pitting the forces who want to modernize and plan ahead for the future with guns and trade agreements against the traditionalists, namely the Samurai. The emperor is loyal to both and is reluctant to commit to either side. With a couple of weeks training, the unprepared army is rushed into its first battle and is easily vanquished. Algren is taken prisoner by the leader of the samurai, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). For the next 6 months, Algren is witness to a highly disciplined society and soon learns the ways of the samurai as well as the Japanese language. As compassionate as he is for them, he is returned to the other side as Katsumoto travels to Tokyo to try to negotiate peace. He ultimately fails and he and Algren return to the village to prepare for a fight that will decide the fate of Japan's military future.

One of the best movies of the last 15 years is Zwick's "Glory" with the similar storyline of a white man surrounded by a black army. And for the first hour, it seemed this would be the same, straight down to Algren forcing a soldier to shoot with the sounds of gunfire in the air. After Algren was captured, the movie grew into something more. We come to appreciate the Japanese way of life as Algren had. We see some in Japan turning into their American counterparts, technologically superior with money as their language of choice. And we see the distinguishing qualities of being honorable and being dishonorable.

The movie, though long at almost two and a half hours, moves quickly with a fast pace to its story. Even at its most tender moments, especially the culmination of the budding romance between Algren and his caretaker Taka, the pacing is just right, not too fast we would miss it nor too slow that it drags. Cruise is solid in his role but the real star is Watanabe, whose silence speaks volumes and otherwise does a lot with the words he speaks and the leadership he shows. The film though is guilty of placing a lot of 20th-century references into a 19th-century period piece, from some of the phrases being said to battles and situations we've seen in countless movies before. So what sets this movie apart with those countess movies? "The Last Samurai" is the complete package, full of emotion, action adventure, and a few moments of humor, including a small homage to Cruise's dance in "Risky Business".

No, it doesn't reach the level of Kurosawa, but, in this day and age, what can? 3.5 stars