The Last Samurai

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * *)

This is the epic where Taranaki's countryside and Auckland's immigrants stand in for 19th-century Japan and its tangata whenua. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) was a hero during the US Civil War but it's 10 years later and he has lost his way, selling Winchester rifles and starring in sideshows, guilty about killing innocent Native American women and children while serving under Custer in the 7th Cavalry.

In search of redemption or money, he becomes a mercenary. Japan wants someone to train its new Imperial Army and put down a rebellion by samurai dedicated to preserving the old ways. The samurai are led by Katsumoto (the wonderful Ken Watanabe). As in Braveheart, the supposed military genius will underestimate his apparently ill-equipped and strategically inferior opponent at their first meeting, and the samurai over-run Algren's force and take him captive.

However, Tom Cruise's character cannot be written out this early in the movie. Katsumoto respects his opponent and keeps him alive. Algren will live among the samurai for a year, learning their codes and their language. Katsumoto's sister will care for him even though he killed her husband. By Jove, these are noble savages indeed, and Algren will alter what passes for a worldview in 1877 to come to respect them.

He will go so far as to accept their point of view: that they are doing the young and ill-advised Emperor a favour by trying to turf out the wicked courtiers who are convincing him to give up Japanese traditions and accept the newfangled Western ways. Suffice to say that many historians beg to differ with this depiction of the noble, less than self-interested motives of the samurai or ronin (mercenaries), and are prepared to write learned theses to say so, just as long as they get a decent research grant.


So we drop all that and say that if you take away all the dodgy philosophy and suspect history you are left with a halfway decent death'n'glory yarn, encapsulating all those values that director Ed Zwick has set forward in his earlier works: Legends of the Fall, Courage Under Fire, Glory. It'd be an even better one if it had finished about half an hour earlier.

The DVD presentation is excellent: wide dimensions, vivid colours, though the lighting is sometimes harsh, remarkable sound, especially through surround channels. Disc one has the feature, commentary with Zwick and the usual array of spoken and subtitled selections. Disc two opens with a 21min History Channel doco, which may give some balance; Zwick's 26min behind-the-scenes diary, with comments from the director and star, plus a whole bunch of short craft-oriented features and a couple of deleted scenes.

* DVD, video rental 12 May