"THE LAST SAMURAI" - Man, it's ALWAYS about the one white guy in the film, isn't it?

[Judge Pen]

I think the ending would have been better if they had all died on the battlefield. Serioulsy, Tom's character surviving when EVERYONE else was killed just underscores the Western bias the movie's theme was working against. Other than that, this was a great movie.

[foolinthedeck]

i liked the ending alot.
there is honour in death
there is also honour in telling the story of that death which is what nathan algren was able to do. western bias? why cant we let the character be an individual who individually may have be stronger willed then most samurai - at the beginning when he took on so many with a flag pole i thought yes this is unrealistic, but at the end he was just a warrior like any other.

my other favorite point - lots of beards, good strong creative beards - is there a beard stylist as well as a hair and makeup? they should get an oscar. (i too have a beard, men with beards are better in every way ha ha )

[foolinthedeck]

oh and another thing:
battle strategy - realistic. compare to 'helms deep' in the two towers, the worst representation of a battle i have ever seen in a film... (stood for hundreds of years? i could take it with a hundred hobbit lesbians!)

[foolinthedeck]

well i cant comment on historical accuracy, but then none of us can because none of us were there! No matter how much you think you know, you dont KNOW any of it.

i would like to comment on emotional accuracy. i felt it was accurate - war is horrible and ****s people up. but there is beauty in everything. But then i dont know if it is emotionally accurate because i wasnt there.

the film had for me more passion, more heart than braveheart. If i was to compare it to any film it would be 'glory' - same director?

again for me, the film was not about samurai, it was about horizons, fields, the restless tide of the future, nostalgia, and cherry blossom, especially cherry blossom.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by foolinthedeck
i liked the ending alot.
there is honour in death
there is also honour in telling the story of that death which is what nathan algren was able to do.

I can agree with that, but why couldn't the english translator have told the honorable story of both men, American and Japanese, dying noble deaths as samurai? I'm being picky, I know, but that would have been more satisfying in my mind and more true to the theme of the movie, imho.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by foolinthedeck
oh and another thing:
battle strategy - realistic. compare to 'helms deep' in the two towers, the worst representation of a battle i have ever seen in a film... (stood for hundreds of years? i could take it with a hundred hobbit lesbians!)

I'd like to see 100 hobit lesbians take helms deep.

[grlyncher99]

I don't think Tom Cruise's character was searching for death in the movie. He was looking for something honorable to accomplish to wipe away the stains of the dishonorable things he had done. Would the lesson have been lost if had died.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by grlyncher99
I don't think Tom Cruise's character was searching for death in the movie. He was looking for something honorable to accomplish to wipe away the stains of the dishonorable things he had done. Would the lesson have been lost if had died.

The samurai thought that death in battle was honorable to the point they would kill themselves if they lost in order to retain their honor. So, I think that Algrin's lesson wouldn't have been lost had he died, but maybe he, as an american with a different definition of honor, didn't need to die.

But it still smelled funny to me that he didn't when everyone else did.

[MasterKiller]

Originally posted by Judge Pen


I'd like to see 100 hobit lesbians take helms deep.

Only hobbit men take things "deep."

[SanSoo Student]

The have "big" feet, and you know what that means...

[Mr Punch]

I'd like my helm to take a hundred hobbit lesbians deep.

[Mr Punch]

The film was about none of those things. It was about Koyuki.

How about this for REAL FORBIDDEN LOVE... Tom Cruise goes to Japan with his wife played by just about anyone you like... he dies in a freak yachting accident, his wife gets captured and kept in bondage by Koyuki and 100 lesbian hobbits... oh no, wait, wrong fantasy...

I enjoyed the movie but SPOILER Tom should have died. Very surprised at Zwick who has stated that Kurosawa was one of his faves. The only acceptible ending was Cruise biting the big one.

Nitpicking along Mr Horse's lines:

Koyuki's hair was wrong for the time;

She knelt, and indeed they all frequently walked on the edges of the tatami;

Her kids would not have played like that with the chopsticks;

I've never met anyone who could put on a hakama with just one small kid-correctible mistake, without having been shown... I've put the ****ers on countless times and still **** it up from time to time;

A few of the samurai, Sonada Hiroyuki's character included passed the bokuto around using the middle of the 'blade', and with the handles facing to the right of the receiver, which was and is never done;

Tom Cruise has the ugliest nose in the movies.





Since we're nitpicking, a scholar is someone who is at school, by classical definition, and etymology derivation. Nice post on that wee Australian ****e's butchering of Scottish history btw.

Where do you live Mr Horse?

[foolinthedeck]

i liked your other post more mat,
fair enough - kobuki was a main character but i dont think the movie was about her. is she set to star in many more films now?
i dont even know who she is! she doesnt even have a surname! and she didnt have boobs! and she wasnt much of an actress to be fair...

[foolinthedeck]

u get the idea though dont you?
helms deep was one main wall, archers on top and a big hole underneath with a sign saying 'olympic torch orc enter here'

my 100 hobbit lesbians could have 'entered' helms deep without even having to duck. japanese castles are much more difficult to 'enter' and japanese women too, but not kobuki - shes easy.

[Mr Punch]

Well I'm sorry enni!



KoYuki is known by every Japanese person who has a tv set (every Japanese person?), But not you huh? 126 million. And foolinthedeck...

Of course I didn't mean the movie was literally about her, just that... oh never mind...

bloody kids!