The Last Samurai

Directed by: Edward Zwick

Runtime: 154 minutes

It’s hard to think about Japan and not get swept up in the mystique.

An island nation isolated for so many centuries, replete with myth and tradition, it stands with Mecca and Llasha as a point of fascination.

Perhaps this fascination with the far east lies not in the scenery: The ‘Wind in the Willows’ mystique, its proud, almost taciturn people, or current techno fetishism that so many of us cannot resist

Perhaps it lies in the western perception of personal honour that resides inside the people of a notion whole.

With so many compromised values we begin to long for something pure in our lives. Something that elevates us not in the mind and hearts of others but the self image that we strive to perfect within ourselves (concisely or otherwise) everyday. Wherein, sadly most of us come up wanting.

Our most familiar Icon of Eastern honour is the Samurai. (Followed by the Karateka, and the historically viewed, honourless Ninja.)

It is hard to fathom these men of stoic demeanour. Who even to day, with no purpose for their art in modern society, save only to honour traditions past, still endure and flourish.

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Think of the Samurai and Tom Cruise doesn’t exactly spring to mind. (Cruise is Cruise and nothing more. Here is a man who has managed to hand us the same formula in every movie (Has he ever not played a maverick?) and most of us are not sick of him. ) But as an essential and superfluous tour guide he fairs well enough.

In many films that deal with foreign subjects or lands we are almost always given a tour guide. An American or British man or woman who acts as an interpreter to the western audience. ( I refer to this as the ’Yank Wank’) This is both superfluous and integral.

Few of these ’guides’ do little to enhance the plot or distinguish the characters.

Some are a outright nuisance. (e.g. Patrick Swayzes character in ‘City of Joy‘.)

In order to market a film they become integral. As few people in the western market will see a foreign film without some familiar context. It’s a sad reality.

Whatever my view of these types of films ‘The Last Samurai’ has some redeeming qualities that bare scrutiny.

The amount of Japanese dialogue is astounding. Most of the distracted, western viewing audiences eyes glaze over when confronted with subtitles. Here they are embraced with zeal. Giving a vibrant reality to the simple act of bathing or eating supper.

Very little is lost in the English language conversations between Cruise and (the fabulous in this movie) Ken Watanabe. Via a simple line of logic;

Katsomuto (Watanabe) wants to know his enemy.

Battle sequences are as only Zwick can provide. Brutal, realistic, lightly spiced with sensationalism, rather than an overpowering side order.

If you like epics ’The Last Samurai’ despite cliché and the occasional ‘Yank Wank’ is by far the most palpable of the modern day variety.

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2.5 Dicks up! (Out of Five)

Go to the movies.

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