the last samurai

a scene from "The Last Samurai"

amidst an audience of supposedly modern and culturally sensitive southern folk, i sat and watched a showing of "the last samurai." in my opinion, i thought this movie was excellent, despite its cliched plot reminiscent of such films as "gladiator" and "dances with wolves". while i admit i am no historian, especially one whose speciality is in 19th century japan, i felt the delivery of japanese culture and the riff caused between the east and the west was done so well, i enjoyed nearly every minute of it. i would have enjoyed the entire film, had it not been for the audience.

i dunno, there's something eery about watching on screen a bunch of ignorant, culturally insensitive 19th century americans scoffing at the ways of eastern tradition amidst an audience, 130 years later, that's laughing along side them. at first i thought maybe the audience was laughing at them, but after an hour or so, i realised they were laughing with them. perhaps i am being overly critical/sensitive, but i think many of the scenes that were meant to be taken seriously were taken with a bit of western arrogance which, as hard as it tried, failed to enlighten.

anyway, aside from that and my fascination with japanese culture, i must say i also enjoyed the fact that this was indeed a guy flick in that there was a lot of blood shed and heads rollin'. but more intriguing to me was the display of cutting edge military warefare of the time... the howitzers and especially the gatling guns, all shiny and new firing 600 rounds a minute. man, i would have hated to be the first guy who felt its wrath, with my last thoughts most likely being "what the fuck was that??"

anyway, tomatometer says 69%. but i've long since trusted that thing, so it means nothin' to me.