The Last Samurai is set in the 1870s, and tells of a disillusioned Civil War veteran, Tom Cruise, who comes to understand and follow the samurai code of loyalty and honor.
Based loosely on a revolt led by samurai Takamori Saigo, The Last Samurai has an emperor who has just regained control of Japan from the samurai-led shogunate. The wars of the samurai had ended in the early 1600s, and the warless samurai had disintegrated into an elite group of landholders. In the movie, the samurai is named Katsumoto, and is played brilliantly by Ken Watanabe.
The movie runs 154 minutes, and even so it feels like some parts are rushed. You get a good sense of Captain Algren's pain at the acts he had to commit during that war. But once Algren meets up with Katsumoto, his transformation from wary captive to enthusiastic side-by-side ally was a bit quick. Maybe it would have taken a miniseries a la Shogun to show that transformation better.
I did appreciate that Katsumoto's sister, who Algren had made a widow, didn't jump into bed with Algren just because they were eventually drawn to each other. The conflicted emotions there were handled exceedingly well and with a restraint rarely seen on modern day screens.
The ending scene reminded me greatly of the ending scene in Ran - a glorious charge of extremely well trained samurai, each devoting his entire life and focus to this one moment, only to be mowed down by unskilled peasants with guns. In both cases it is a scene that has you screaming interally for the gunners to stop - and you feel great relief when the on-screen soldier makes the same call to cease fire. Of course it's too late, but the point has been made, and the emperor finally makes a stand for the "people".
I really loved the movie, with its epic battle scenes and its study of the samurai code. I found it very telling that the audience in the theater (which was packed when I saw it) had such a poor understanding of what samurai honor was all about. In one scene, the sister tells Katsumoto that she is shamed to have the murderer of her husband in her house, sharing a table with her two sons. She asks her brother to allow her to commit ritual suicide to end her shame. Some audience members laughed at this, thinking it was a funny joke the silly woman was making to make her point! They had no idea that this was a serious request by a woman who valued her honor so highly.
For that reason, it concerns me that many people who see this movie think that it's a realistic portrayal of the samurai of the late 1800s. I am a HUGE fan of the feudal Japan culture of the 1600s, with the samurai who fought to bring peace to the land. But the samurai of the 1800s were by and large many generations removed from any war. They were used to the fine life, to fancy sake, to lovely clothes and to big houses. While most of the land toiled with primitive farm equipment and had little to eat, the samurai lived the high life. In modern day society we would be quick to scold those elite few who lived on the labor and suffering of the masses. In The Last Samurai we give attributes to those of the 1800s that properly belong centuries beforehand, and applaud the efforts of the rich samurai to hold onto their power and property. There are times that progress should be stopped - but I don't think that the Japanese wanting to learn new skills and enhance its infrastructure in the late 1800s was one of those times.
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