The Last Samurai: A Critical Look
I watched it, wasn’t disgusted, smiled, left, and promptly forgot it. Despite its four Oscar nominations and a $100 million budget, Edward Zwick’s “The Last Samurai” almost perfectly fits this pattern. The idea of yet another Hollywood “Japanification” is understandable. It seems America has belonged to the Japanese for years. They don’t advertise it, but every American knows it now. So, they’re trying to figure out how such a historical injustice occurred.
“The Last Samurai” presents a purely fairytale scheme with a binary opposition: “the Japanese have roots/the Americans have Winchesters.” Despite the seemingly rigid connection to the Meiji Restoration of 1876-77 – the restoration of the real Emperor Mutsuhito, who defeated the Tokugawa shoguns by using imported military technology (German, not American, by the way) to transition from feudalism to capitalism – this is another Hollywood John Barleycorn, who traveled beyond the seas. But the interesting part only begins when he finally reaches the forest. The backstory is largely irrelevant to the actual plot – the Winchester show in the US, the dinner with Prince Omura and Colonel Bagley, then the audience with the Emperor. The backstory only gives some personal weight to Tom Cruise’s Captain Algren. It’s as if to say, “Don’t mind that he’s such a freak, small and nosy, but he has a soul that aches, a contempt for death, and a wild thirst for life.” This is how Americans subtly maintain their self-esteem: the scene where he tears open his shirt – “No, you shoot me, you shoot me, Jap” – is impressive, but only in the moment.
Katsumoto Steals the Show
The plot truly begins when Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) enters the frame. This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that he was nominated for an Oscar only for “Best Supporting Actor.” The Americans understand, haha, that the Japanese actor made the movie for them. Just know while watching that this is Watanabe’s first role in English (6’2" tall, wife and two children, advanced leukemia), and that he will never become a Hollywood star. But, in any case, in the fairytale “The Last Samurai,” Katsumoto, the Robin Hood, is the real hero, not John Barleycorn, even though Tom Cruise was the main producer. It is Robin Hood who has so many fresh parameters here that the fairytale becomes watchable even for adults. The samurai wasn’t ashamed that he mangled English. He silently endured Algren sprawling in front of him, leg over leg. He turned a blind eye when Algren courted his sister, after initially killing her husband. He didn’t fight when he had to escape from prison. He believed his adored son that it was time for him to die. He stood to the death before Omura’s army, knowing in advance that everything would go his way. Thanks to Bushido, Katsumoto’s reaction at any given moment is adequate to such a number of external impulses that he is incredibly intelligent, regardless of the fairytale, reality, or hint.
Cruise’s Self-Awareness
Tom Cruise only reaches the level of “equal” through self-deprecation. It seems that this is purely the merit of the screenwriter. John Logan, most likely, as he knows how to do (“Gladiator,” “The Aviator,” “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas”), preemptively bet on replacing cheap self-esteem with real self-irony. Only morons guffawed when Cruise was dressed in the armor of her late husband by Katsumoto’s sister, Taka (Koyuki): “Well, screw her, well, screw her.” The rest understood this kind of sex, and laughed a little later, when Cruise appeared in armor on the porch, and a little earlier, when he first put on the hakama. The laughter here is from the obvious elephant in the china shop, who is not ashamed to be an elephant. Laughter during the viewing, by the way, was often in clearly unintended moments. But Logan foresaw that all of Cruise’s adventures were only to highlight the samurai luxury, so that even the elephant would understand that the past is the future when it is pure. Cruise-Algren clearly highlights this, because he himself is aware of his screen mission.
Missed Opportunities in Directing
Unfortunately, the desire to give the fairytale an epic aura exposed a rather mediocre direction in “The Last Samurai.” It is worse than its predecessor, “The Twilight Samurai,” and worse than its successor, “Kill Bill.” This cannot be ignored, since it is connected to them. And if “Kill Bill” is indirect confirmation of Japan’s priority over America, then “The Twilight Samurai” is a direct prequel, no less than the Winchester show. The same Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who went to fight for the Tokugawa clan there and died in the war, has only changed his name here. He is now not Seibei, but Ujo, Katsumoto’s right hand, but he will die in the same way. However, at the first comparison with “The Twilight Samurai” (by the way, also nominated for an Oscar – for “non-English language”), it is clear how Edward Zwick (“Legends of the Fall”) does not feel the material. In his horse marches at the beginning, there is a high horizon, the frame is cut off above the heads. He didn’t rewatch Hokusai. His foggy sky near Fujiyama is an empty cutaway, like “time passed.” He didn’t read Sei Shonagon. Zwick doesn’t measure up to the level of Watanabe, John Logan, or even Tom Cruise, which is especially noticeable in the wild swings of intelligence and stupidity in the finale. You’ll see.
The Climax: A Well-Executed Battle
Nevertheless, he took his due, and a number of regularly successful scenes during the narrative are worthily crowned by the main battle. First, such a game of toy soldiers, when “erste colonne marschiert, zweite colonne marschiert,” some with bows and swords, others with rifles and cannons, is elementary difficult to separate on the battlefield so as not to forget anything or anyone and everything works according to the idea of "you lie, you won’t kill." Secondly, the adventures of this idea, when Omura’s army first burned, and then brought out machine guns, and then – it is clear what – they are very psychologically accurate and complete. That is, the battle itself is a separate movie, a large colorful metaphor for a rather complex psychological situation, in what conditions is a win possible at all and what does it consist of.
In addition, “The Last Samurai” has a number of successful witticisms, and the Englishman Timothy Spall traditionally played his episode elegantly.