Okay, I’m a sucker for big battlefield movies, particularly with Samurai, and I love the particular period in Japanese history. So, even though I’m not the biggest fan of Tom Cruise, I’ll be seeing this one. Anyone else planning to see it? Why?
I generally like Zwick but the poster is a movie fan repellant.
Why don’t you like quatoria?
Oh, you’re not talking about that poster…
Tom Cruise. As a samurai.
I was capable of sentient thought before this movie was brought to my attention.
Well, as an American soldier who falls in love with Samurai culture. “The Last Samurai” might not be referring to him at all, but to the warrior he befriends.
It’s a good looking movie, at least.
Troy
Yeah, I wasn’t interested when I first heard the name - the idea of Tom Cruise being “The Last Samurai” seemed like another ignorant trampling of a country’s history. The theme as presented in the trailer, however, of Crusie being brought in to train the Tokugawa-era troops in modern tactics with firearms, being captured, and becoming one of the old-school Samurai holdouts, opposing the modernizing government, is pretty compelling, I think.
I hereby re-title the film, “Dances with Snow Monkeys.”
Yeah, before seeing that trailer, I had pretty much written off the movie as a lame casting fiasco. It makes a lot more sense now, but the title is still misleading. I wonder if they are referring to “Samurai” in the plural sense…
- Alan
…
-Kitsune
(PS Look, I’m Squall!)
I’m going into this movie with trepidation thrusters of full. Went to the movie’s website, saw Cruise’s silhouette doing all this kendo shit, and my brain just broke. Apparently, giving an appearence of extremely conflicting logic is a good way to get me ready for a movie, as my expectations could not possibly be lower. I’m expecting it to be like the rest of his movies where it’s a fun trip as long as you’re willing to regularly “let it go”.
The local theater had passes to a week-early sneek preview that we’re going to see tomorrow. I don’t know that I’ve seen a Cruise movie I’ve hated, but the trailer on this one really turned me off.
I saw this last night and it was much better than I expected. Although it got a little too melodramatic at the end(Cruise trying to go for the Oscar), overall it was good. The story moved along really well, the acting was great (especially the main samurai, a Japanese guy that was awesome), and it was a very good looking movie. I enjoyed the battled scenes, but they seemed so small. A battle with thousands of participants lloked tiny because the camera kept so close most of the time, it was almost ahrd to tell if 200 or 2000 people were fighting most of the time.
Keep in mind our expectations were pretty low, maybe thats why I liked it so much.
Yeah good thing that had the best spy/agent/race car driver/jet fighter pilot/pool shark/cop/gay ass bartender EVAR!!!1!1 to teach those ignorant tard samurai something about gun powder and guns :roll: .
/Not that the Japanese invented it or anything
Well, as an American soldier who falls in love with Samurai culture. “The Last Samurai” might not be referring to him at all, but to the warrior he befriends.
Troy[/quote]
From reading the script, I think the title is in fact referring to the Samurai in plural, as the story’s about the last generation of Samurai before the modernization of Japan wiped them out. If you think about the the title that way, it’s a bit cooler.
Well, as an American soldier who falls in love with Samurai culture. “The Last Samurai” might not be referring to him at all, but to the warrior he befriends.
Troy[/quote]
From reading the script, I think the title is in fact referring to the Samurai in plural, as the story’s about the last generation of Samurai before the modernization of Japan wiped them out. If you think about the the title that way, it’s a bit cooler.[/quote]
The plural option was mentioned earlier in this thread and makes much more sense, of course.
Aside from the Ring Thing, this will probably be the other blockbuster we see this Xmas season.
Troy
ROTK can kiss my ring.
They didn’t.
Try China for that.
Erm, excuse me, what, China? Like most things here, certainly samurai find roots here and there all over the place, but the samurai is unique to this lovely little island. ;) The links that do show up are not actually with China, but with Korea. Granted though, the tradition does owes hardly anything to China, unlike most of our traditions, in fact, much of was a result of native developments. The only real link is that the old armies were conscripted by Chinese rules, but those armies have little to do with who was known as samurai, as they were held to different standards and has little relation to the full-blooded evolution that came later on and is what everyone recognizes – much as the same way as the knights at Medieval Times have little to do with real medieval chivalry – as well they fell out of use by the time bushido grounded. If you’re arguing the Confucian roots, well of course, but that isn’t quite as important as the offshoots of Buddhism and even more so, Shinto, that contributed toward it.
By curiosity, what class Chinese warrior are you thinking of, what are you thinking of? Because if its what I think it is, there are a whole boatload of differences between the two traditions that make separating them essential.
And of course, this movie has nothing to do with modern samurai, who are completely removed from other types! :D
-Kitsune
I think he was referring to gunpowder…
China invented gunpowder??? Err, let me clarify that, I don’t mean the whole Taoist monks play with fireworks thing, I thought it was one of those inventions, like paper, that had several different starts at different times around the world.
-Kitsune