Other Titles • The Last Samurai • The Last Samurai: Bushidou
Synopses for The Last Samurai (2003)
1.
The Last Samurai gives epic sweep to an intimate story of cultures at a crossroads as Japan undergoes tumultuous transition to a more Westernised society in 1876-77. In America, tormented Civil War veteran Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is coerced by a mercenary officer (Tony Goldwyn) to train the Japanese Emperor's troops in the use of modern weaponry. Opposing this "progress" is a rebellion of samurai warriors, holding fast to their traditions of honour despite strategic disadvantage. As a captive of the samurai leader (Ken Watanabe), Algren learns, appreciates, and adopts the Samurai code, switching sides for a climactic battle that will put everyone's honour to the ultimate test.
All of which makes director Edward Zwick's noble epic eminently worthwhile, even if its Hollywood trappings (including an all-too-conventional ending) prevent it from being the masterpiece that Zwick and screenwriter John Logan clearly wanted it to be. Instead, The Last Samurai is an elegant mainstream adventure, impressive in all aspects of its production. It may not engage the emotions as effectively as Logan's script for Gladiator, but like Cruise's character, it finds its own quality of honour. --Jeff Shannon
(94 votes)
2.
TWO Hot Movies. ONE Low Price.
Last Samurai
Tom Cruise plays Civil War hero Capt. Nathan Algren, who comes to Japan to fight the Samurai and ends up pledging himself to their cause. Ken Watanabe (Academy Award nominee) plays Katsumoto, a Samurai leader facing a vanishing way of life, whose destiny becomes intertwined with that of the American captain. Edward Zwick (winner of the National Board of Review's Best Director Award) directs this sweeping and emotional epic tale of the birth of modern Japan.
Interview With The Vampire
The undead are among us and livelier than ever when Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and a talented group of youngbloods star in Interview with the Vampire, the spellbinding screen adaptation of Anne Rice's bestseller. Box-office favorite Cruise stylishly plays the supremely evil, charismatic vampire Lestat. Pitt is Louis, lured by Lestat into the immortality of the damned, then tormented by an unalterable fact of vampire life: to survive, he must kill. Stephen Rea, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater and Kirsten Dunst also star.
Hypnotically directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) from a screenplay by Rice, Interview with the Vampire offers enough thrills, shocks and fiendish fun to last a lifetime and beyond.
(81 votes)
3.
Captain Nathan Algren (TOM CRUISE) is a man adrift. The battles he once fought now seem distant and futile. Once he risked his life for honor and country, but, in the years since the Civil War, the world has changed. Pragmatism has replaced courage, self-interest has taken the place of sacrifice and honor is nowhere to be found - especially out West where his role in the Indian Campaigns ended in disillusionment and sorrow.
Somewhere on the unforgiving plains near the banks of the Washita River, Algren lost his soul.
A universe away, another soldier sees his way of life about to disintegrate. He is Katsumoto (KEN WATANABE), the last leader of an ancient line of warriors, the venerated Samurai, who dedicated their lives to serving emperor and country. Just as the modern way encroached upon the American West, cornering and condemning the Native American, it also engulfed traditional Japan. The telegraph lines and railroads that brought progress now threaten those values and codes by which the Samurai have lived and died for centuries.
But Katsumoto will not go without a fight.
The paths of these two warriors converge when the young Emperor of Japan, wooed by American interests who covet the growing Japanese market, hires Algren to train Japan's first modern, conscript army. But as the Emperor's advisors attempt to eradicate the Samurai in preparation for a more Westernized and trade-friendly government, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai. Their powerful convictions remind him of the man he once was.
Thrust now into harsh and unfamiliar territory, with his life and perhaps more important, his soul, in the balance, the troubled American soldier finds himself at the center of a violent and epic struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his sense of honor to guide him.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Radar Pictures / Bedford Falls Company / Cruise-Wagner Production of an Edward Zwick film: Tom Cruise in the epic action drama The Last Samurai, starring Timothy Spall, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Hiroyuki Sanada, Koyuki. Directed by Edward Zwick from a screenplay by John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz & Edward Zwick, story by John Logan, the film is produced by Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner, Scott Kroopf and Tom Engelman. Ted Field, Richard Solomon, Vincent Ward and Charles Mulvehill are the executive producers. John Toll, A.S.C., is the director of photography. Lilly Kilvert is the production designer. Edited by Steven Rosenblum, A.C.E., and Victor du Bois. Music by Hans Zimmer.
The Last Samurai will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. It is rated R by the MPAA for "strong violence and battle sequences." Soundtrack album on Warner Sunset Records/Elektra Entertainment/WMG Soundtracks.
(83 votes)
4.
Epic Action Drama. Set in Japan during the 1870s, The Last Samurai tells the story of Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first army in the art of modern warfare. As the Emperor attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly government policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his own sense of honor to guide him.
(70 votes)
Mooviees.com is not the official site for this film.
All editorial views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only.
Movie Database
In Theaters
