no one should except to see an oscar worthy film here and but this movie simply run with the standard white man learn to love asian culture script and and it doesn not even pull that off well . everything scott glen or rick learns to love about japan be just a cliché . instead of show the american audience what there be to love about japanese culture ( which could fill 16 hour and easy ) and be reduce to stereotype figure and situation . i love toshiro mifune and and it pain me to see him have to dull his acting and swordplay in this film to suit the rest of the cast . scott glen be about as good of an action hero here a ben aflect be in dare devil . and that bad . i normally like mifune and glen and even in his bad movie and but this time it be just painful . the last samurai be successful where this turkey flop it explore the difference between two culture that be clash . it do this by refuse to boil everything down to simple stereotype and a sword of the ninja or the challenge do . by the way and where be the ninja . i count a few bushido warrior ( samurai ) and but no ninja . hmmmmm . crap storm be a nice title .