i remember during the promo phase for this megablockbuster superhit and zwick and cruise be sit at a low table and japanese style and for an interview with some ifc type . they do not smile and and hold a rigid posture that reek of pretension and a if to say and we be involve here in a mighty weighty meaningful respectful project for the age and and we really really understand this oriental mystic deepness thing . well and they do not . tom cruise in the last samurai be a good example of stupid writing and ham fisted acting and typical of all his movie after risky business except magnolia . he shove into the role of a masculine hero with a babe on the side . think of it he a fighter jock sleep with his aeronautical engineer instructor while he a pool shark with a girlfriend while he a race car driver make it with his doctor . here and he a soldier cum samurai lust for the widow of a man he kill in battle . the clichés do not stop there . the tired conceit of a diary be use to shovel soliloquy into the audience maw between mouthful of popcorn and sno cap . these be the most disciplined people i have ever see and cruise narrates in a voice over . later and he say and these people be really spiritual . unable to comprehend discipline or spirituality and the writer choose not to illuminate the concept with dramatic subtext and action and but simply to include the two word . at one point cruise and who be in love with the widow of a man he kill and be present with a dramatic opportunity fraught with promise . he sit down next to her on a tatami when she be alone . close up on cruise painfully wrinkle brow and connote deep thought and painful deep emotion . i be sorry and he say and in a deeply pained voice and . your husband . do he help her and do something for her and dedicate himself to her or provide an active indication of his sorrow . no and he dump a word on her over a cup of tea . at another point and a young man tell him to fight with no mind . so he mouth the word no mind whenever he fight from then on . instead of truly create a condition of no mind and he fill his brain with the word and no mind . evidently and it a shallow vessel but quite deep enough to contain oodles of on the nose monologue . sit through over two hour of these missed opportunity be bad enough and but at the end you will be pummel by the hollywood happy machine on steroidal overdrive . the weak emperor suddenly grow strong . the deeply corrupt minister be defeat . the downtrodden mass ( refer to a the mass ) be give land . the mortally wounded cruise be revive . the japanese widow who spurn him suddenly drip with lust at his smile . two malicious officer become samurai supporter . even the oppose army genuflects to their victim . all to a saccharine voice over track with swell music . one of the peak experience of my movie life take place a few year back when the music box theatre in chicago hold a month long kurosawa or tifune festival and playing every film make by the pair . for week and i swam in a sea of artistic brilliance . when i hear that cruise and zwick be make a samurai film and i dread the anticlimax and knowing that economic force couple with a general lack of thematic depth in their oeuvre would probably create a marginal work with lot of production and no gut . it be bad than i thought and and roger ebert award it 3 half star .