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Film Fare...with Mark Moorehead
The Last Samurai

General Audience: B

Sweeping epic with great battle sequences that cost some combatants their heads.

Sword fights, stick fights and guns blazing away in the sunlight combine with Zen and a little romance. Nice costumes. No offensive language, sex or nudity.

Family Audience: C

Not recommended for children 14 or under. Rated R for extreme violence and battle sequences. More slashing than a Freddy Kruger-Edward Scissorhand paper-cutting contest. 

The Last Samurai should have been re-named Dances with Wolves Part Two: Captain Dunbar goes to Tokyo. It seems no matter how spiritually rich, physically strong or honorable a native population is, they are simply incapable of defending themselves without a keenly insightful white man going native and leading the poor heathens into their last battle.

Substituting for Kevin Costner in the role of the embittered ex-war hero disgusted by his own kind is the perpetually smiling Tom Cruise.

Parallels between this film and Dances with Wolves pile up as fast as the body count. Costner’s character learns the ways of the plains Indians while Cruise’s educates himself on the ways of the 19^th century Samurai. Cruise helps stave off a Ninja attack on the Samurai village where he’s held prisoner just as Costner defended his adopted Indian village from a raid by the Pawnee.

Both men fall for a demure local village woman with a heart of gold. I could go on, but citing similarities doesn’t mean The Last Samurai is a bad movie. It’s just disappointing because it could have been really great.

Director Edward Zwick picked an intriguing and little known episode in Japanese history and brought it back to life in full regalia. Zwick’s superb cast of Japanese actors, reprising the roles of Samurai in 1876 Japan, shed light on the roots of Japanese militarism and ultra nationalism that soon followed. Shame and honor are clarified. Suicide is depicted as the only honorable choice for a defeated Samurai, and they have no respect for a defeated Western counterpart that fails to choose the same fate.

Before I digress further, an outline of the story would be helpful. Tom Cruise plays the role of Capt. Woodrow Algren, a washed up, drunken American war hero haunted by nightmares of his participation in wiping out Indian villages that included women and children. Good fortune comes his way with an offer to go to Japan to teach modern warfare to their soldiers. He accepts and sets sail for Tokyo.

During the film Cruise also narrates the story until this task is suddenly and surprisingly transferred near the end to an English translator and photographer played by Timothy Spall.

Soon after his arrival in Japan, Algren is called upon to take his untrained Japanese recruits into battle against the rebellious Samurai. In a foggy forest, the Samurai charge out of the haze, wipe out the young recruits and take a wounded but undaunted Algren prisoner. 

At the Samurai mountain village Algren is tended to by the widow and children of the man Algren has killed in combat. If you find this scenario hard to believe, you’re not alone. And what makes Algren’s winter stay at the Samurai village yet more unbelievable is his behavior. He is cocky, rude and arrogant. A real Samurai would have used him for target practice.

Within months of his captivity, Algren goes completely native, donning a Kimono, quoting Buddha and learning to fight as a Samurai. He finally bonds with Katsumoto (played by Ken Watanabe), the leader of the Samurai, and they become soul mates.

In addition to being a warrior, Katsumoto is also a devout religious man, and this rubs off on Algren.

In Algren’s spiritual awakening he starts spouting off unlikely lines like “a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed.” Convinced Algren is a Samurai in spite of his big nose and buggy eyes Katsumoto allows him to fight as a Samurai in the final battle against the howitzers and machine guns. What a good buddy, thanks for the honor.

What struck me when I left the theater was that this film would have been more compelling had Cruise played a journalist covering the story rather than being the story. Ken Watanabe was the true star. Together, with the fabulous cinematography, inspiring music and a classic cultural clash between the old and the new, the Asian cast saved the day.

Pecan Grove Estates resident Mark Moorehead writes regularly for Wrangler News.      

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