Oughts from the Aughts: The Last Samurai (2003)
“The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.” -Katsumoto
In high school, my sister was so obsessed with Tom Cruise that she covered the wall next to her bed with a collage of magazine clippings of him, which my dad dubbed the “Tom-atorium.” She even had a life-sized cutout of his character in Jerry McGuire.
When she went off to college in 2000, I moved into her room. The Tom-atorium was long gone. So was the cardboard cut out, which was for the best, lest Cruise’s intense stare haunt my ten year old dreams. Still, her obsession left a curious impression on me just as her many magazine clippings had on the wall by what was now my bed.
Being eight years younger than a sibling means that your obsessions, like your life stages, rarely overlap. Her Cruise mania had corresponded with my shark mania, but since Tom Cruise hadn’t starred in a shark film, we didn’t have a shared movie to bond over. As she moved on to college and new obsessions, I continued to find Cruise’s movies vexing until I was about to enter high school myself. That’s when I saw The Last Samurai.
In this 2003 war epic, Cruise plays Nathan Algren, an alcoholic American army captain with a haunted past who agrees to travel to Japan to train their military. The Japanese emperor is trying to modernize his country, but must first put down a rebellion led by the samurai warlord Katsumoto, played by Ken Watanabe. After being captured in battle by Katsumoto, Algren reluctantly begins to respect and eventually admire the ways of the samurai. Won over by Katsumoto’s cause, he agrees to fight with him in an epic battle that’s basically Thermopylae with katanas and gatling guns.
As I left Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley, I was blown away by the enormity of this movie. In the two decades since, I’ve probably seen The Last Samurai more times than just about any film I’ve covered in this series. If you like historical war epics, all of the most savory cinematic ingredients of that genre are densely packed into this umami bomb of a movie.
It’s got an iconic score from Hans Zimmer, well choreographed battle scenes, a captivating setting, amazing costumes, and a performance from Ken Watanabe projecting so much gravitas he might just form a black hole of charisma the next time he stoically walks off screen. After seeing his Oscar-nominated performance, I became convinced that watching Ken Watanabe read the ingredients on a can of baked beans would be more dramatic than anything I’ve done in my entire life.
Yet over the years as my tastes have evolved and I’ve grown wiser, I’ve also become aware of the litany of reasons why I shouldn’t like this movie.
It’s yet another paint by numbers white savior gone native tale that flattens real history into a feel-good, moralistic carnival ride. Back in 2003 we’d already seen too many of these: Lawrence of Arabia, Dances With Wolves, and The Last of the Mohicans to name a few. Since then, we’ve gotten two Avatar films that put all of these tired tropes into a Vitamix and turned it up to a high setting only James Cameron would dare attempt.
Thinking too long about The Last Samurai makes me feel as divided as the Japan it depicts. Is this movie just tired clichés dressed up in fancy armor?
One of the best reasons to watch historical epics is to visit places that are impossible to visit otherwise. In this regard, The Last Samurai is an undeniable triumph. This is an engrossing journey to 1870s Japan thanks to the incredible production design. The sets, locations, and costumes are lavish and do a lot of heavy lifting to transport you to this period. Sadly, at the 2004 Oscars, costume designer Ngila Dickson lost the Academy Award for best costume design… to herself thanks to her even better work on The Return of the King.
Cruise’s performance is essential to this journey as he is both a point of view character for the audience and the emotional core of the film. Even his “Tom Cruise-iness,” while irritating in other movies, is essential here. In his three and a half star review of The Last Samurai, Roger Ebert noted that Cruise:
“Takes with him into battle both the cocksure pilot of "Top Gun" and the war-weary veteran of "Born on the Fourth of July." The casting helps the film with its buried message, which is about the re-education of a conventional American soldier.”
Cruise, often chosen to play arrogant masters of their craft, instead portrays someone who is out of his element the whole film and must actively work to build humanity and purpose. His arc gets the audience curious and invested in three key ways: whether loathsome and lost Algren can possibly redeem himself, why Katsumoto fights for a doomed cause, and which of the warring factions will prevail over the direction of Japan.
You can critique Cruise for many things, but you can’t argue that he half asses any of his roles. Here, he gives his all, evocatively showing Algren’s journey from an obnoxious alcoholic haunted by PTSD to a man who is more humble and empathetic. His character arc is touching, reminding us that we’d do well to embrace life, struggles and all, instead of trying to run, hide, or drink them away. Battle scenes aside, this screenplay is about learning to find joy and purpose in sobriety and the little details all around us. As Katsumoto puts it:
“Like these blossoms, we are all dying. To know life in every breath, every cup of tea, every life we take. The way of the warrior…that is Bushido.”
While you were partying, Tom Cruise studied the blade, but I studied the arguments against this movie.
The Last Samurai lazily depicts yet another white warrior fighting alongside the fictitious but appealing “noble savage.” By showing Algren’s personal anguish over his role in the slaughter of indigenous people, American audiences see their own guilt for these atrocities visualized and tidily resolved by the end of the film. Algren’s choice to fight alongside another oppressed tribe with bows and arrows rather than support the US colonial industrial complex is a form of counterfactual wish fulfillment that white American viewers like me can’t seem to get enough of.
Even as a work of historical fiction, The Last Samurai still falls prey to many of the cardinal sins of Hollywood trying to portray history: simplifying complex events, making real people into idealistic caricatures, and leaving out anything that’s inconvenient for their agenda.
Much of what the film attributes to Americans like Algren was actually done by the British, French, and Germans in real life. Elements of the real conflicts depicted are fictionalized for dramatic effect, like Katsumoto’s samurai not using firearms despite the fact that samurai had been using guns since the Portuguese brought them over in the 1500s, only switching to their swords at close range or when they ran out of ammunition. Other elements are left out entirely to avoid spoiling the soup with too much nuance. Real samurai in Japan were often viewed as corrupt warlords opposed to modernization because it threatened their dominant social status, hardly the noble, idealistic warriors portrayed by Watanabe and worshipped by Cruise. Other things are pure nonsense—the ninja attack scene is as thrilling to watch as it is entirely made up.
Despite knowing exactly why I shouldn’t love this movie intellectually, it still moves me emotionally every time.
Watching the ending battle at 33 is as heartbreaking now as it was exhilarating at 13. The doomed charge at the end is the perfect visual metaphor that reminds us that events and transitions that occupy a few sentences in a history book are a convenient shorthand for thousands of lives that ended tragically along the way. Like Gangs of New York, this is a poignant visualization of the chaotic process by which a culture emerges from the forge of history. Cruise’s character gives us the audience a front row seat to a period of time seldom discussed, much less examined in detail in the US.
The best rebuttal to the argument that Algren is just another white savior narrative is the fact that Algren doesn’t actually save anything besides himself. Unlike Jake Sully in Avatar, he doesn’t achieve victory. He’s unable to stop the forces of modernity and mechanized slaughter from advancing. Like us, he’s ultimately just a witness to the violent march of historical progress.
As for the historical inaccuracies, even armchair history buffs have to concede that this movie gets the bones of this period right enough to stick the landing. Japan was indeed isolationist for centuries, resulting in a few decades of tremendous upheaval when Westerners eventually forced their way in and tried to profit off of Japan. This effort was led by an American, Commodore Matthew Perry, who sailed into Edo bay and forcefully demanded that Japan began trading with the United States. When the tectonic plates of traditionalism and modernity collided, the result was the Meiji Restoration, in whose turbulent aftermath this movie is set.
Tom Cruise’s character of Nathan Algren is based on two real French officers who fought alongside samurai in the 1868 Boshin War. However, the plot is based on the 1877 Satsuma rebellion, the last civil war in Japanese history, which saw samurai rise up against imperial conscripts. Their defeat ended the cultural and military role of the samurai forever. Watanabe’s character of Katsumoto is based on legendary samurai Saigō Takamori, who led the Satsuma rebellion.
While you can point out historical inaccuracies till the cows come home, armchair nitpickers miss how this movie gets you to empathize with the stakes and themes of this time period where a by-the-book retelling might flounder. It is an impressionist painting based on real events, not a documentary.
Moreover, they’ll never have the emotional high ground since this movie didn’t even invent the idea of elevating the last samurai as a folk hero. Katsumoto’s real life counterpart Saigō Takamori is respected in Japan for his dedication to the emperor and to the code of Bushido. There is even a prominent statue of him walking his dog in Ueno Park in Tokyo.
This movie has gotten meta, too, given that it’s all about stubbornly fighting for the old ways long after society has moved on. The Hollywood of the aughts is dead and gone. As the film industry moves away from stars as how they market films to focus on solidifying their intellectual property and tinkering with sprawling extended universes, Tom Cruise stands alone, more Katsumoto than Algren, stoically staring down a foe that even his skills may not be able to defeat. He is The Last Movie Star.
During the depths of that first COVID winter, Matt organized an outdoor movie night. Matt made lumpia and Alexis made Last Samurai themed cocktails: a pear brandy affair called “pear-fect, they are all pear-fect” and a sake-based one called “SAKE!” If you know you know.
Asahi in one hand and lumpia in the other, Matt, Kevin and I buckled in for the joyride, our shared intimacy with the film’s dialogue a proxy for our emotional intimacy with each other, the way many male friendships are organized.
This umpteenth rewatch convinced me that watching The Last Samurai is like eating a gourmet bacon cheeseburger. As a teen you think it’s heaven. As an adult you’re aware that it’s flawed and not something you should consume every day. Still, it’s so well crafted and satisfying that its decadence is hard to argue with. James Cameron may indeed be making a zillion more Avatar sequels, but I think I’ll pass on those and rewatch this movie instead. Thanks, Tom Cruise.
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If you’ve got thoughts or questions about The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise, or historical war movies, I’d love to hear them.
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