steve kwan user experience designer

The Last Samurai

(December 11th, 2003)

I saw The Last Samurai this weekend...what an excellent film.

Tom Cruise has really outdone himself this time. I went into this movie with low expectations; after all, any film with a name like "The Last Samurai" and an action star actor like Tom Cruise could be really bad. However, instead of watching a high-budget, cheesy swordfight, I was treated to one of the best movies I can recall seeing.

The basic plot of the film is that Tom Cruise is a white man who travels to the then-developing nation of Japan to train an army to battle old-school samurai. He is captured by the enemy and taken to their village; it is there that he falls in love with the Japanese culture and "switches teams."

What makes this movie so great is the level of excellence it attains. The acting, the scenery, the story...all are of such high quality that you will doubtlessly be engrossed in this epic film.

There are only three complaints I have about this movie; here they are, in order of severity:
1 - The Hellboy trailer at the beginning of the film
2 - A boat scene near the beginning where the CGI (if it was CGI) seemed a little grainy & phony looking
3 - "Emperor Neo." See the movie and you'll know what I mean.

The few quirks are so insignificant that they barely affect the film. Except for the Hellboy trailer, that was horrible. Who funds this crap? That movie is going to suck so bad...didn't anyone learn from LXG?

Oh well...since the trailer wasn't actually part of the movie, I suppose I can't hold it against the film. Suffice it to say that The Last Samurai was an excellent film and is easily worth the $13.75 admission. I give it 4 stars out of a maximum of 4.