| The Last Samurai and the Cinematic Ninja Theory |
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| The Last Samurai is the film that perfectly
illustrates the Cinematic Ninja Theory, which I
developed some years ago. The Cinematic Ninja Theory
states that a movie is ten times better if it contains
a ninja. There only needs to be one ninja in the film
for the effect to occur; the ninja need not do
anything spectacular or ninja-like. Even a flaming
crapwagon of a movie like Moulin Rouge might have been
decent if a ninja had crept quietly across the screen
while Ewan Macgregor was singing Elton John inside the
giant elephant. Man, did that movie suck.
The plot is this. Capt. Nathan Algren, alcoholic veteran of the Civil War and the Battle of Little Bighorn, is hired by a man named Omura to help train the newly modernized Japanese army. However, a group of traditional samurai is resisting the efforts towards modernization. During the first encounter with the samurai, Katsumoto, the samurai leader, captures Algren when his green troops break and run. Algren then spends the winter as a captive of the samurai, coming to appreciate their culture and overcoming his personal demons. He also manages in three months to become the equal of samurai warriors who have presumably been instructed in martial arts since boyhood. Even less believable is the romantic subplot, in which Cruise wins the heart of Katsumoto’s sister, who is the widow of a samurai warrior he killed in the first battle. All of this culminates in a final battle in which Katsumoto and his samurai perish nobly according to their code. Tom Cruise gets to live happily ever after having samurai sex with the widow woman, but before he rides into the sunset, he presents the young, weak willed Emperor of Japan with Katsumoto’s samurai sword and entreats him to remember the samurai and what they stood for. The Emperor then grows a pair and refuses to sign some trade treaty with the Americans, thus beginning a 70-year struggle for hegemony in the Pacific that would lead to Pearl Harbor, internment camps, the Bataan Death March, and atomic bombings. So thank Tom Cruise. Fuckin’ dick. |
| Reviewed 16 July 2004 by BLT |
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| Photo from somethingawful.com |
| On the surface, The Last Samurai appears to be a pretty standard Hollywood battle epic in the Braveheart mode. The movie is historically inaccurate, because by the 1870s the samurai were an outdated feudal class that fought no battles and served little actual purpose. They lived principally by exploiting their traditional rights over the Japanese peasantry. The plot doesn’t make much sense, if you take the time to think about it. Why is
modernization bad? Why would any of the events in this movie shake Algren’s belief that war is a horrible waste of lives, and that the idea of dying a glorious death in battle is bullshit? The dude comes on like Wilfred Owen in the first half hour, but by the end he’s spouting the story of the 300 Spartans and getting ready to fight a suicidal battle. Not that this movie is bad. It would simply be a mediocre, slightly pretentious movie except for the fact that for about midway through the movie, Omura hires some ninjas to assassinate Katsumoto. While the samurai are watching some Kubuki play, a whole shitload of ninjas show up and start kicking ass all over the place. Thankfully, Tom Cruise has just mastered martial arts and so manages to save the day while countless battle-hardened samurai are getting their shit fucked up by ninja assassins. Thus this movie is saved by the real ultimate power of the ninjas, as they flip out and kill people and don’t even care. In conclusion, The Last Samurai demonstrates how any mediocre Hollywood picture can be improved with the addition of even one ninja. |
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| Tom Cruise had to travel to Japan to be an action hero. It's the only place where everyone wasn't taller than him. |
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| Obligatory Ninjas to improve My Stupid Website. |