*** Official THE LAST SAMURAI Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Max Leung]

The difficult restraint is palpable...AND THEN THEY KISS!!! Are you freaking kidding me?

Yeah I nearly cringed on that one. At least it wasn't a "real" kiss. It looked like she stopped herself just as their lips touched. But it is enough to scare away most Japanese audiences...I'd bet that TLS will do poorly in Japan for this scene (among others).

 

[Patrick Sun]

Someone who watches a lot of movies at the theater just walked into my office to talk about TLS, and he said he was prepared to not like it, call it a bias against Tom Cruise, but he got sucked into the emotional content of the film, and forgave the shortcomings of not capitalizing on the themes that could have been strengthened with tigher writing. So, on one level, he loved it (had tear flowing towards the end because he "bought" what the movie was trying to sell him), and on the other, he's not all that concerned about the thematic shortcomings because he was transported to that time, and came to care about the characters. There you go, just one guy's reaction to the film. I think his reaction is more in step with the average movie-goer's reaction to the film. Is it a more valid critical reaction, probably not, but he got his money's worth, and in these times of so-so films, TLS was a satisfying movie-going experience for him.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Patrick, you just described exactly how my brother felt about the movie.

I think most of Seth’s problems are due to very high expectations of the film even before going in to the level that it was an Oscar contender based on… I’m not exactly sure he got this impression. When one goes in into a film with this kind of lofty expectations and is then not met, a groundswell of disappointment is abound.

TLS is an action adventure yarn that goes for depth that happens to be released during Oscar season. Whether or not that depth was achieved is a different matter and realized more on a personal level. I’m not sure it was trying to be any kind of film other than that. Looking at it at this level, there are still quite a few things to like about it.

~Edwin

 

[Patrick Sun]

Another person in my office is married to someone who works in theater management, and he got to see ROTK this past week as a sneak peek for all the theater management here in the southeast for this particular theater chain (around 100 people in attendance), and he enjoyed TLS more than ROTK. Take that FWIW. Again, expectations do play a role in how much enjoyment we derive from a film. I have been doing my best to ratchet down my expectations and try to just watch the film and see how it itself affects me. I think it's the fairest thing I can do as a movie viewer.

 

[ChuckSolo]

So hey Chris's, in your opinion, who's the culprit, was it Cruise or Zwick, or are they both just lame to you guys? I, for one, walked in expecting a disappointment, and came out thinking the movie was very good.

 

[Edwin-S]

You mean like the wide-angle shot they did of one of the battles in the middle of the film? The combatants were operating at a speed that made them look like refugees from the Keystone Cops. Luckily, the director didn't dwell on that shot for more than a couple of seconds. It really looked bad.

I thought the film was okay, but it was hard to swallow some of the premise. I thought Watanabe was a consummate actor. He had to be, because he was able to spout some of the dialogue he was given without cracking a smile. I could put up with a lot from this film, but the ending was just too much. It was so illogical, all I could think about was how stupid it was. All the real Japanese Samurai get wiped out and Algren goes back to their village to take up residence?! I have not had a bigger WTF moment as I did when I watched that Hallmark moment occurring.

 

[Chris]

So hey Chris's, in your opinion, who's the culprit, was it Cruise or Zwick, or are they both just lame to you guys? I, for one, walked in expecting a disappointment, and came out thinking the movie was very good.

My wife and I talked about this. Really, if I were to blame anyone, it would be mostly post production choices more then either Cruise or the director.. it seemed as though, in talking to those that went with me, if you could excise about 6 minutes out of the film, then some of the moments would be greatly improved. This sounds strange, but the delivery of lines in certain scenes had the air of "now, let's pause for dramatic effect" that always grates on me.

There is a tendency to blame Cruise because there are moments in the film where he is working so hard his delivery is poor; but I think if you could just change those scenes very slightly, and mostly through post, the dialog wouldn't seem to stilted. As it is, the dialog is flat and forced in areas because after it is uttered, there seems to be unnatural pauses, and it's delivered with such force you almost want to say "CUT CUT!"

But, as it sits, a little bit of blame goes to everyone. Zwick doesn't seem to grasp the subject matter well enough to make it light on it's feet, and Cruise tries so damn hard that he comes off poorly.

The thing is, this is not a "bad" film, it's just not a great one. This is the kind of film that may get some Academy sniffs and then four years later you've almost totally forgotten about.

 

[Chris Harvey]

I blame them both, but Zwick more than Cruise. Zwick has a tendency to overemphasize themes and drain a lot of ambiguities out of his stories and characters, which I simply don't find that interesting. Cruise (the actor) was trying hard, I simply couldn't past him as the star (noticing how white his teeth were, how expertly coiffed his hair was, etc). An unknown would have been better in the role, IMHO (but I realize that's between me and my reaction). I like Cruise in a lot of things, but felt the star-ness of the role more than anything the character brought to the table.

Back to Zwick -- he's just so heavy-handed! I sat through the first half of the film checking off each scene (which I could tell was coming). As soon as I found out he killed Taka's husband, you knew he was gonna wear the armor. And so forth. There was no room for surprise, for interesting character moments. Instead of having Algren be the Naive Westerner who swallows Katsumoto's every word, why not have him question them? Why not indulge in some of the "good conversations" -- there is value to modernity, and Katsumoto was very hard-headed about his traditions. Lack of conflict between interesting characters = a slow death of my interest.

(But I realize this is getting more into "LS Discussion" territory, rather than a mere review)

 

[david stark]

However, what does Katsumodo get from Algren? That Westerners can be just as honourable? I dunno, I was too distracted by the nifty visuals and great battle scenes.

I felt that Katsumodo got a bit more fighting spirit from Algrin. I felt that it was Algrin pushing at the end to keep fighting and not give up even though it would almost certainly mean death, whereas Katsumodo would have been happy to fall on his sword.

 

[Paul Chi]

This film was a lot better than I expected it to be. One of Tom Cruise's best performances. However, I do not think he will be nominated for an Oscar.

 

[Matt_P]

Interesting discussions.

While I enjoyed the film quite a bit, I certainly felt it could have been better. It was quite formulaic, but I was not disappointed.

Sorry I'm not going into more detail, but it seems what needs to be covered has been already.

 

[Patrick Sun]

In the History channel special tonight, they asked Zwick if TLS was "History or Hollywood" and he wussed out by saying it was "Historywood".

One of the "expert" suggested that Cruise should have played a German military trainer because it was the Germans that did most the new western weapons introduction to Japan.

 

[Max Leung]

Hey David, you are right. I had forgotten that Algren convinced Katsumodo. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Obviously this is just a Hollywood film, but I grew up on this type stuff. Movies like 'The Hours' and 'The Pianist' boor me. Every year I find myself wondering where these great films everyone talks about at awards shows were and how come no one has ever heard of them. If they were so unbelievably great then why don't they sell? A perfect movie should be enjoyed by everyone. I go and rent them and think "damn I'm going back to my hollywood puke, that shit was boring!" While they may have some great point it's trying to get across, I usually find that the film says "I don't need to be a fun movie to watch to be a great movie". That just doesn't sit well with me. But that's just me I guess. When you grow up watching Aliens, Terminator and Die Hard it's hard to sit down with some movie that has a moral agenda, is 3 hours long and is kind of boring.

That's why a movie like this sits well with me. it was great entertainment. The hero wins, there is fun stuff to watch, a little romance involved, basically a hollywood puzzle. But that's all I was looking for, just to have some fun form of entertainment. I wasn't going in looking for a perfect film. I do wish there was more of the 'conversations' though and more stuff in the village. That way of life is seems so simple but nice, as opposed to Braveheart where they live in mud huts. I would have enjoyed more of the middle with just village stuff, training, etc.

One thing that does drive me nuts is when people treat you like you are stupid because you do not know about these 'elite' films. Call me ignorant, but not stupid because I choose not to see that stuff. This rant has nothing to do with anything said in this thread, but I was just on a roll so I kept going.

 

[Ryan FB]

The suicide of the Colonel (or was it a general?), with Katsumodo lopping off his head is another variant of suicide. I can't remember why it is different from the "carve your insides first", but may be related to honourably accepting defeat on the battlefield. Having someone assist in your suicide must have a different significance than doing it yourself (which is more painful and messy).

Actually, in almost all forms of seppuku, a skilled second swordsman known as the kaishakunin is the one who does the actual killing. There was definitely usually a good amount of ritual to it, although as we come in part-way to the scene in the movie without knowing what's happened before, much of this (or an abbreviated form, since it's a battle surrender and they're improvising) could have already taken place. Incidentally, it was considered bad form for the kaishakunin to completely sever the head, as decapitation was traditionally reserved for criminals being used as trainers and sword-testers...the Hagakure, or Way of the Samurai, actually refers to this saying "Yamamoto Kichizaemon was ordered by his father Jin'-emon to cut down a dog at the age of five, and at the age of fifteen he was made to execute a criminal. Everyone, by the time they were fourteen or fifteen, was ordered to do a beheading without fail". A "good" cut would sever the head and leave it hanging by a relatively thin strip of flesh. No style points for Katsumoto there!

The form of ritual suicide in which there is no kaishakunin to assist is known as jumonji giri, and is much more painful (and thus less common and only performed by the real bad-ass samurai one would presume) and probably what you were thinking of.

 

[Phil Florian]

I only watched about 15 minutes of History vs. Hollywood (watching rest tonight or tomorrow) but what I saw was a bit different from other episodes. It was less a comparison and more of the kind of promotional material seen on low-rent DVD's. I appreciated the history lessons and maybe the analysis happens a bit later but if it is as it was in the first 15 minutes, it is promotional material, not educational or critical (in a good way critical, not in a criticizing way).

Anyone see it all the way through? Did it make any points worth discussing here?


Ciao,

Phil

 

[Andy Sheets]

I watched the History vs. Hollywood episode. I get the impression that they have turned it into more of a promotional show. The previous episode I watched was for Master and Commander, and I was struck by how different it seemed from the earliest episodes of the show that I had watched, which IIRC had relatively little promotional stuff in them.

I did think the episode had some interesting stuff in it, though. They made some really interesting points regarding a lack of historical accuracy, such as pointing out that samurai did use guns at that time, that they probably would have hired Germans or Prussians to train an army and not an American, and there was one guy who basically said that in reality, we would have probably been rooting for the "bad guys" because the samurai were representing an outdated and oppressive way of life. So in terms of "history vs. Hollywood", the episode firmly judged the film to be Hollywood, although they still plugged it anyway

The samurai documentary after the show was pretty interesting, too.

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

Regarding seppuku, didn't they have the guy there to cut off the head so the one who is committing suicide doesn't dishonor himself by showing weakness or pain before he can die?

I doubt that Cruise will get nominated for an Oscar, but I'm really hoping that Ken Watanabe does. I just loved his performance. Actually, now that I think about it, his performance reminded me a lot of Graham Greene's wonderful portrayal of Kicking Bird in DWW (one of my favorite performances), another parallel.

 

[Max Leung]

Thanks for the info Ryan!

I recall that the jumonji giri (solo painful suicide) is to be performed with a straight face with no squeak of pain if you are really a bad ass samurai. Ouch.

 

[Tim Glover]

Saw this last night. So far, this is the best film of 2003! More later.