Just saw The Last Samurai

Ridiculously good movie.

Anyone else have an opinion?

I was disappointed in it. I'd heard it was great, and thought it was just so-so.

The ending was laughably hokey - Cruise coming in JUST as the Emperor's about to sign a contract.... dumb hollywood stuff.

I also thought Cruise added nothing to the movie, and I'm one of the few people who actually LIKE Tom Cruise and think he's a good actor. I would almost have preferred a no-name in the role.

I just thought the whole thing was a little too "hollywood".

It was Dances with Wolves, Japanese style... filmed in New Zealand. :)

So I wasn't the ONLY one who got that impression?

Didn't one of the troopers in "wolves" also ask Costner's "Dunbar" "Why you hate yer own people so dam much?"

Hell, they could've cast me in place of Cruise and the movie would have worked. Cruise was superfulous.

Battle scenes were pretty good.
TONS of historical innaccuracies.

but it still was a great flick and I liked the actor who played the Samurai Lord.

He was great....

Yup! I want to see a lot more of Ken Watanabe. :)

He was "Gun" in TAMPOPO way back in 1985.

I saw it with a friend from Japan who is staying with me for a few months. He said the lead Japanese actor is famous in Japan; he had leukemia and retired but has recently come out of retirement. He also said there were a lot of historical inaccuracies in the movie but that the general themes were good. He liked it.

As I do with everything these days, I related it to our current political situation. The Republicans were obviously the corporate pigs corrupting Japan, turning it into a "nation of whores."

Since I think I saw Jim Jeffords today and have him on my brain, perhaps Tom Cruise could be Jim Jeffords.

BTW--my Japanese friend thinks Bush is stupid and says most Japanese people do, too.

1) This movie is supposed to happen during a samurai uprising in the year 1876-1877. That uprising had, in fact, occured in 1868, when the samurai class ceased to exist.

2) The Battle of the Little Bighorn occured on the 25th and 26th of June, 1876. Cruise's character shows up in Japan on the 22nd of July, that same year, after wraping up a whirlwind tour selling Winchester rifles. So, tell me, how did this hero of the battle get from the SE corner of Montana (when he was presumably discharged from the Army, instantly), to a seaport, and then on to Japan in less than 4 weeks, given that the crossing itself took 1 1/2 to 2 weeks and he had managed to become a spokesperson for Winchester firearms as well?

They train all their lives to learn what Tom picked up in a few months. Ugh.

A lot, actually.