the last samurai be a movie about the fascination of american for japanese culture and more specifically japanese heroism . but focus on heroism alone dangerously narrow down the subject and approach it from an american viewpoint warp and twist it into a failure . before explain why and here be a short summary of the plot . american army captain nathan algren and play by tom cruise and be disillusion after participate in gruesome slaughter of native american indian . a friend of him convince him to come to japan to help strike down revolt of japanese samurai and who oppose the new meiji government reform . soon he face them and be beat and capture and but samurai leader katsumoto and play by ken watanabe and spar his life and patiently let him experience the japanese lifestyle and specifically bushido and the samurai warrior code . algren be so grip by them that he join their side and help them in their final effort to plea and fight for their cause . this could have have be a nice movie . all ingredient be there represent a period of turmoil with great historical importance and a clash of culture and heroic warrior and of course a solid budget . but the movie never succeed in convince . there be a number of reason for that . first and the acting be mediocre . nobody really flunk and but never do you see one of them really be their character and instead of pretend to . secondly and the plot follow a very predictable hollywood path and never surprising and increasingly boring . the only surprise be that algren manage to get into a romance with a japanese lady and which be only surprising because you would not expect the writer to insert such a standard thing into a story that do not suit it at all . thirdly and the sparse action scene be shoot with an overload of pomp and drama and similar to mel gibson braveheart or peter jackson lord of the ring style and with long drawn out view of hero die heroically and or should i say refuse to die for minute on end . especially the final battle be pathetically overdone and suggest that the only purpose of the samurai be to die with honor . do anyone ever consider that samurai also live life . some people have compare this edward zwick tom cruise combo product to the work of akira kurosawa and who seem to be their own hero . my advice represent if you want to see a good movie about japanese samurai and go watch movie make by the japanese themselves . for instance and the work of aforementioned akira kurosawa and who could have teach zwick and cruise some move .