Quick Movie Review: The Last Samurai (2003)

The Last Samurai (2003)

Bottomline: Excellent movie with Samurai in the title.

Where Can I See This Movie? It was recently in heavy rotation on HBO and it's available on DVD.

Award Alert!! Ken Watanabe who portrays Katsumoto was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He lost to Tim Robbins (Mystic River).

QMR Opinion: This is one of my favorite movies. Yes, it stars Tom Cruise as Capt. Algren who falls victim to liquor and self-pity. Of course, he ends up in the camp of Samurai and soon learns the way of the Samurai, which involves a lot of introspection followed by hacking at folks with a super cool sword. Directed by Edward Zwick, this movie does tend to collapse into its own self-righteousness but it is a beautiful movie with some terrific acting by Cruise, Watanabe and a whole host of great supporting characters. I am a sucker for movies that use honor as their primary theme and that's what this movie is all about.