Re: The Last Samurai and other Disasters

From: reinierd <reinierd_at_lWyUv6PWKP3nNSmbE0ks4wa0PVMwUjGLyNZYqAugIvBg-vQnDgTBsdGhdCgixrQ7WKj>
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 05:00:25 -0000


OK, old news by now but since you just reposted on the other list, felt it OK to respond. Since it's OT over there, responding here.

This is going to be a confused post. 90% of what John says is not only Right, but factually correct. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie. Why?

I think it comes down to Glass Half-Fullism the definition of Acceptable Junk Food. Yes, this movie was 90% empty calories, but that artificial cheese flavoring really did it for me. Here are some of the ingredients I found redeeming:

--an acceptably accurate portrayal of Japanese culture. Yes, yes, the
emperor scenes and a lot of other stuff was Wrong, but the daily life stuff, much of the samurai code stuff was ... OK. For Hollywood and Cruise, that is a miracle. (We had just seen Kill Bill, which I found utterly repulsive so I had low expecations.)
--No Bad Japanese. This was not Kill Bill. I mean bad like English in
dubbed-Hong-Kong-movies is really bad, only not funny.
--Looked nice.
--Hey, tactics in the battle scenes! Still doesn't make sense, but
not 100% content-free!
--Yes there was a love interest - but no love scene. Victory!
--Cruise is upstaged by Watanabe.
--The battles and fights show real suffering (although this is
clearly not Private Ryan). An improvement over Hollywood's usual soft-porn violence.

Actually, the movie had more merit than this. What I liked was the idea that you stick with a cause if you think it is right, even if it means you get utterly destroyed. Maybe it was something I read into the movie rather than something that was developed. It certainly wasn't fully developed, and it was co-opted heavily in the ending. "What cause?" was also not examined carefully. But I hadn't expected Hollywood to understand this part of Japan; in Hollywood, it is OK to be ornery and stubborn – a maverick or whatever – but in the end you *win*.            

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