Tom Cruise Talks About "The Last Samurai"

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In order to prepare for the role of Captain Nathan Algren in The Last Samurai , Tom Cruise endured months of strenuous physical training while at the same time trying to get inside his character. Cruise's character Algren is a decorated veteran of the Civil War who's lost his soul. Hired by the Emperor of Japan to train Japan's first modern army, Algren finds a kindred spirit in the form of Samurai leader, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). Together the two men discover much about each other's culture and find that ultimately their lives are not so different as they appear on the surface.

Producer Marshall Herskovitz praised actor/producer Tom Cruise for his work ethic, dedication, and incredible focus. "Tom threw himself wholeheartedly into the preparation. I've never seen an actor do as much research for a film. He had a library of information and was amazingly helpful. Ed and I have always challenged each other, that's the center of our creative relationship, but it's rare for us to be stimulated in a similar way by someone else. Tom became a part of our creative partnership and it's been incredibly enjoyable and rewarding," said Herskovitz.

Interview with Tom Cruise

You learned Japanese, you learned to fight with swords, you learned a little bit of everything. What was most challenging for you? The character was really challenging. I needed every bit of the months before shooting and every bit of the months during shooting to get to the character and work on it. Definitely, the physical aspects of it were…At the beginning, I just thought, “How am I going to do this?” I didn’t tell anybody that (laughing). I told Ed Zwick, “Oh, I can do that. Don’t worry about it. I can do that.” But I just knew I had to be very, very disciplined about preparing for it. But also the physical transition and the character development at the same time, I just kept diaries while I was doing that. I knew that things were going to change and I was constantly looking for the character.

You’re in great shape. Is there a regular workout routine you stuck with after filming? No, I do so many different activities. It’s role-dependent, just to be able to do what I have to do. I’ve lost 25 pounds I had to put on.

Do you ever have any second thoughts about doing your own stunts? No, no I don’t. I’m very safe when I go to do them. I’m meticulous and safe.

You described working on this as being like a full course meal. Can you elaborate on that? Three countries, over 2,000 crew members, different cultures. It was just beautiful is what it was, just beautiful. I loved it.

Why did you pick this movie? For me as a man, philosophically, when you talk about honor and integrity, that’s the way I want to live my life. It moved me. And also I’m just fascinated with their culture and this gave me the opportunity to explore it and to honor the things that I love most about their culture. And to work with Ed Zwick; it’s a very ambitious film. How can you say no to that?

Hiroyuki Sanada plays one of the samurai who initially doesn't accept your character. Sanada said that behind the scenes he helped you by giving you pointers. He did. He’s tough, he’s good. He worked with me. I worked many months before shooting but then when I came in he was always very supportive and very helpful.

Several of your co-stars have mentioned you had Penelope Cruz and the kids on the set with you. What was that like having family there? Fun. I always have my family with me when I’m working. It just becomes part of the life.

Were there activities you could do with them during your downtime? It was great in New Zealand because there was sea-kayaking and caving and all that stuff. It was a lot of fun.

The real Ron Kovic ("Born on the 4th of July") is here at tonight's Premiere. What's it mean to you to see him here? Well for me, I’m really proud of this film and it’s just always good to see Ron. I was born on the 3rd of July and he was born on the 4th of July so that experience that we went through, that was a very powerful experience making that film. I’m just glad to see him and he’s doing well and he says he feels stronger and he looks really happy.

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Was The Last Samurai Tom Cruise’s last great movie?

Twenty years ago, the ‘mission: impossible’ frontman did a lot more than just shoot people and jump off tall buildings. today, ‘the last samurai’ marks one of the actor’s final truly ambitious starring roles. as the film celebrates its 20th birthday, chris edwards speaks to director edward zwick about its place in cruise’s legacy and the stunt that nearly killed his leading man, article bookmarked.

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Samurai man: Tom Cruise in his 2003 historical epic ‘The Last Samurai’

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A sk Steven Spielberg who his favourite superhero is and he’ll probably say Tom Cruise . Last year, the filmmaker credited the actor for “saving Hollywood’s ass” with Top Gun: Maverick , thanks to its sky-high box office numbers on the back of the pandemic . That Cruise should be the literal saviour of cinema seems fitting, given that he’s now the undisputed king of action blockbusters . And yet, for all his recent efforts and cinema-saving success, he doesn’t have a major personal award to show for it. In fact, it’s been years since the actor gave a genuinely Oscar-worthy performance. Twenty of them, to be exact.

December 2003 saw the release of director Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai , a sweeping epic charting the end of Meiji-era Japan and the extinction of a noble band of warriors. Teeming with peaceful temples, opulent courtrooms and pensive shots of luscious nature (although it was mostly filmed in New Zealand, not Japan), the film didn’t exactly feel like your typical Cruise blockbuster from the offset. But it ended up becoming the perfect vehicle to showcase both his acting ability and superhuman work ethic.

“Tom’s energy was daunting and inspiring,” Zwick says today, speaking from his home in California. “We shot for 120 days on three continents. He was in practically every scene and never did I see even the slightest flagging of enthusiasm or a lowering of the high bar he sets for himself. That kind of attitude from the number one on the call sheet is incalculable. It animates everyone, cast and crew alike, and creates an on-set culture that carries the film through some very long, tough days and nights.”

In the film, Cruise plays Nathan Algren, a former US Army captain who is hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country’s first army in the ways of westernised combat (aka guns), to quash an uprising from the last remaining samurai. However, after being captured in battle by the samurai and forced to live in their peaceful mountain village, Algren becomes accustomed to their way of life. He then decides to join their rebellion, after realising that the imperialists are the real enemy after all.

The Last Samurai was nominated for four Oscars at the February 2004 ceremony – Best Supporting Actor (Ken Watanabe), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound Mixing – but went home empty-handed. Cruise, who also produced, didn’t even get a sniff, which is perhaps unsurprising given he was playing a fairly generic hero role. But it was still a thoughtful and nuanced performance, the sort not typically required for blockbusters like Mission: Impossible, Edge of Tomorrow , or any and all aviation-based films featuring sweaty, shirtless ball-tossing.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to make an epic,” Cruise said during the film’s press tour back in 2003, after being asked why he decided to take on the project. He also cited his pre-existing fascination with the samurai and their culture. “That’s how I aspire to live my life, with integrity, compassion, honour, loyalty. Those are things I think about and that mean something to me. But in making the picture, I got to really get inside a different culture, one I’m absolutely fascinated by.”

It was essentially a passion project for Cruise, who hasn’t made a film like it since. He did deliver a surprising turn as an assassin in Michael Mann’s sinister 2004 thriller Collateral – arguably his last vaguely interesting role – but it certainly wasn’t the kind of part that could define a career like The Last Samurai looked set to do.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s just hard for an actor to give a dimensional, complex performance when he’s playing a comic book hero

Though decidedly in blockbuster mode, Cruise’s performance in the film perfectly captures the conflict in Algren, a man who previously fought against the Native Americans and subsequently drinks to erase the memory of his atrocities. As he begins to fall in love with the samurai way of life – as well as the widow of a man he honourably killed with a stick in combat – he gains an even deeper understanding of the suffering his own people have inflicted. By the time he’s had some thoroughly enjoyable conversations with chief warrior Katsumoto (Watanabe), and suits up in objectively cool samurai armour, you don’t just understand why he wants to switch sides, you want to join him.

Zwick was impressed by Cruise’s acting skills, but he mentions one particular moment during filming that left a lasting impression. “There’s an important scene toward the end of the film on the eve of the samurai’s final battle,” the director tells me . “He was to say goodbye to Higen, the son of the man he killed, whom he befriended over the course of his stay in the village. I felt that shooting at magic hour would lend a sombre tone. That meant having only one take of a very emotional moment – with multiple cameras – in Japanese! It’s one of his finest moments in the movie. I’m sure had I asked him to do it while standing on his head, he would have done that, too.”

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Over the course of the film, Cruise learned to speak Japanese, mastered their style of swordsmanship (kenjutsu), and, of course, performed all of his own stunts. As ever, his commitment to the role and project as a whole was immense.

As for the actor’s creative input, Zwick adds: “He understands a director’s issues as well as his own and knows how to articulate those aspects of his character that might be worthy of examination. What made it easy was that his thoughts were always in the context of the movie as a whole, rather than the kind of tunnel vision some actors indulge in.”

Cruise even put his neck on the line for the film. Literally. While shooting a battle scene, in which he and co-star Hiroyuki Sanada were meant to ride towards each other on animatronic horses, a malfunction caused them to almost collide and Sanada came within an inch of decapitating the lead star with his sword. “Tom’s neck was right in front of me and I tried to stop swinging my sword, but it was hard to control with one hand,” Sanada told reporters through a translator while promoting the film in Taipei, Taiwan. “The film crew watching from the side all screamed because they thought Tom’s head would fly off.”

It’s widely acknowledged that the Academy Awards like actors to suffer in order to win an Oscar – crawling into the carcass of a frozen horse for The Revenant finally did the trick for Leonardo DiCaprio, after all – and what could typify that more than almost losing your head?

Horsing around: Cruise goes to war in ‘The Last Samurai’

Aside from an apparent bias against blockbusters, there’s another likely reason why Cruise didn’t receive an Oscar nod for The Last Samurai : when the film was first released, it immediately prompted questions about its depiction of Japanese culture. It was accused of historical inaccuracies and the story was deemed by some to be a prime example of white saviourism.

But the criticism wasn’t completely justified. Cruise’s character is actually based on a real person: a French soldier named Jules Brunet, who arrived in Japan in 1867 to train the Tokugawa shogunate in modern weapons and tactics. Even Watanabe’s chief warrior is steeped in a real piece of history, with the character largely inspired by Saigo Takamori, the leader of the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion.

In any case, The Last Samurai does not purport to be a biopic, and is clearly meant to be watched as a piece of fiction. In 2004, Zwick told The Independent that he intended to romanticise the samurai, who were nowhere near as friendly in real life. “It was an aristocratic culture that existed on the backs of the peasants,” the director said. “It was sometimes quite brutal and there were real licenses that I took, fully aware of what I was giving in exchange for what I was getting.”

In truth, Zwick ensured that the samurai were the real stars of the film, which is a genuine rarity for a blockbuster fronted by someone basically as famous as God. Instead of fixating on star power, action or special effects, The Last Samurai focused on character development, allowing Cruise to tap back into the Oscar-worthy skillset that previously earned him acting nominations for Rain Man , Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia .

And it turned out to be a master stroke. Critically, the film received mostly positive reviews, with Roger Ebert writing that it is “beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, [and] an uncommonly thoughtful epic”. The Hollywood Reporter , meanwhile, heavily praised Cruise for “underplaying his role, letting his character’s deeds speak for him and permitting intimacies not usually associated with epic moviemaking.” Financially, however, the film actually performed better in Japan than it did in the US, which could perhaps be a reason why we haven’t seen a similar Cruise epic since.

Taking direction: Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise on ‘The Last Samurai’ set

Understandably, Zwick bemoans the box office demands of modern blockbusters and how, as a result, it’s become harder for actors to deliver the sort of thoughtful performances that can really elevate a story. “I know there are lots of reasons, mostly economic, that the major studios are reluctant to take chances on the kind of adult, dramatic films – at scale – that I’ve been lucky enough to make,” he says. ”It doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s just hard for an actor to give a dimensional, complex performance when he’s playing a comic book hero. [In those films] the star of the movie is the special effects.”

Mercifully, Cruise is yet to delve into a superhero universe, but it’s possible that the demands of major studios and audiences may well prevent him from dropping another acting masterclass in a mainstream blockbuster – unless he ends up surprising us when he finally leaves Earth’s orbit for that untitled SpaceX film. Yes, Cruise may be the saviour of cinema (and Spielberg’s hero), but to become it, he’s had to take a 20-year break from true protagonist perfection.

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Edward Zwick 's "The Last Samurai" is about two warriors whose cultures make them aliens, but whose values make them comrades. The battle scenes are stirring and elegantly mounted, but they are less about who wins than about what can be proven by dying. Beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic. Its power is compromised only by an ending that sheepishly backs away from what the film is really about.

Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe co-star, as a shabby Civil War veteran and a proud samurai warrior. Cruise plays Nathan Algren, a war hero who now drifts and drinks too much, with no purpose in life. He's hired by Americans who are supplying mercenaries to train an army for the Japanese emperor, who wants to move his country into the modern world and is faced with a samurai rebellion.

The role of the samurai leader Katsumoto (Watanabe) is complex; he is fighting against the emperor's men, but out of loyalty to the tradition the emperor represents, he would sacrifice his life in an instant, he says, if the emperor requested it. But Japan has been seized with a fever to shake off its medieval ways and copy the West, and the West sees money to be made in the transition: Representatives from the Remington arms company are filling big contracts for weapons, and the U.S. Embassy is a clearinghouse for lucrative trade arrangements.

Into this cauldron Algren descends as a cynic. He is told the samurai are "savages with bows and arrows," but sees that the American advisers have done a poor job of training the modernized Japanese army to fight them. Leading his untried troops into battle, he is captured and faces death -- but is spared by a word from Katsumoto, who returns him as a prisoner to the village of his son.

It's at this point that "The Last Samurai" begins to reveal itself as more than an action picture. Katsumoto, who conveniently speaks English, explains he has kept Algren alive because he wants to know his enemy. Algren at first refuses to speak, but gradually, during a long, rainy winter of captivity, he begins to have philosophical conversations with the other man about the ethics of war and warriors. Some of these talks sound like Socratic exchanges:

Katsumoto: "Do you believe a man can change his destiny?"

Algren: "I believe a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed."

For Algren, the traditional village life is a soothing tonic. Haunted by nightmares from his wartime experiences, he confesses, "Here I have known my first untroubled sleep in many years." He has been lodged in the house of Taka (Koyuki), the widow of a man he killed in battle, and although she complains bitterly to Katsumoto, she maintains a smiling facade in Algren's presence.

Algren: "I killed her husband!"

Katsumoto: "It was a good death."

Katsumoto has pledged his life to defending the dying code of the samurai. Algren finds himself gradually shifting allegiances, away from the mercenaries and toward the samurai, but his shift is visceral, not ideological. He bonds with Katsumoto, respects him, wants to find respect in his eyes. The movie illustrates the universal military truth that men in battle are motivated not by their cause but by loyalty to their comrades.

"The Last Samurai" breaks with the convention that the Western hero is always superior to the local culture he immerses in. It has been compared to " Lawrence of Arabia " and "Dances With Wolves," films in which Westerners learn to respect Arabs and Indians, but this film goes a step further, clearly believing that Katsumoto's traditional society is superior to the modernism being unloaded by the Americans. Katsumoto is the teacher and Algren is the student, and the film wonderfully re-creates the patterns and textures of the Japanese past; its production design, sets and costumes are astonishing.

Watanabe is a deep, powerful presence; he has the potential to become the first world star from Japan since Toshiro Mifune . Cruise is already a star, and will be targeted by those predisposed to see him and not his character, but here I think his stardom works for the film, because he takes with him into battle both the cocksure pilot of " Top Gun " and the war-weary veteran of " Born on the Fourth of July ." The casting helps the film with its buried message, which is about the re-education of a conventional American soldier.

The supporting cast is splendid: Koyuki quietly stirs as the widow who feels sexual attraction but suppresses it; Tony Goldwyn blusters and threatens as the hard American mercenary; Timothy Spall is the British translator who knows the words but not the music. Scichinosuke Nakamura plays the emperor as a tormented, shy man who admires Katsumoto's values, even while agreeing with his advisers that the rebellion must be put down. "I am a living god -- as long as I do what they say is right," he muses at one point, in words I somehow doubt any Japanese emperor would ever have employed.

The director is Edward Zwick, whose other war films (" Glory ," "Legends of the Fall," " Courage Under Fire ") have also dealt with men whose personal loyalties have figured more importantly than political ideology. Here he gives Algren a speech attacking Custer, whose last stand was fresh in everyone's mind. ("He was a murderer who fell in love with his own legend, and his troops died for it.") Yes, but how would Algren describe this film's final battle scene, in which Katsumoto leads his men into what appears to be certain death? To be sure, his men share his values, but is there an element of seeking "a good death"? Is a there a line between dying for what you believe in, and dying because of what you believe in?

That the film raises this question shows how thoughtful it is. If "The Last Samurai" had ended in a way that was consistent with its tone and direction, it would have been true to its real feelings. But the ending caves in to Hollywood requirements, and we feel the air going out of the picture. An art film can trust its audience to follow along to the necessary conclusion. A Hollywood ending assumes that the audience caves in at the end, turns dim-witted and sentimental, and must be fed its lollypop.

"The Last Samurai" has greatness in it, but sidesteps the ending that would have given it real impact. If there's going to be an alternative ending on the DVD, I know what it would have to show -- and so, I suspect, does Edward Zwick.

Note: Which character is the "last samurai" -- Katsumoto, or Algren? A case can be made for either answer, which suggests the nature of their relationship.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Last Samurai movie poster

The Last Samurai (2003)

Rated R for strong violence and battle sequences

154 minutes

Timothy Spall as Simon Graham

Tom Cruise as Nathan Algren

Ken Watanabe as Katsumoto

Tony Goldwyn as Col. Benjamin Bagly

Koyuki as Taka

Hiroyuki Sanada as Ujio

Billy Connolly as Sgt. Zebulah Grant

Shin Koyamada as Nobutada

Scichinosuke Nakamura as Emperor

Aoi Minata as Magojiro

  • Marshall Herskovitz

Directed by

  • Edward Zwick

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The Last Samurai may be a product of its time, but it was also a step forward for representation.

tom cruise on last samurai

Discussions of The Last Samurai often focus on the obvious incongruity of a movie where Tom Cruise dons samurai armor to become the steward of traditional Japanese culture. The picture of Cruise’s bearded, American-Jesus-like face, writ large on a movie poster under the word “samurai,” was more a symbol of Hollywood tradition when the film appeared in theaters on December 5, 2003. Yes, this is a white-savior narrative — Cruise’s cosplaying can’t disguise it — but the first face onscreen is Ken Watanabe, who received an Oscar nomination for his role as Katsumoto, the samurai leader. What the actors represent offscreen, culturally, is the reciprocal of their characters and the film’s central conflict between tradition and modernization.

The Last Samurai follows Cruise’s character, Captain Nathan Algren, a guilt-ridden, mercenary veteran of the American Indian Wars who enters Japan to train the Emperor’s army so they can quell a samurai revolt. Set early in the Meiji era, when Japan opened to the West after 200-plus years of isolationism, the film pits Katsumoto and the country’s old, sword-wielding, feudal ways against new American technologies like the Winchester rifle and the dreaded howitzer. That these are weapons is almost incidental to the plot; the old and new are vying for dominion.

In the opening scene, Katsumoto realizes something’s amiss when his idyllic mountain meditation is interrupted by a vision of a white tiger. This is a premonition of Algren, who inhabits a more industrial milieu when we meet him at a San Francisco trade show. There, “railroads, cannons, and Western clothing,” as Emperor Meiji (Shichinosuke Nakamura) later puts it, are ready to be exported to Japan. Trotted onstage with brass fanfare as a sham war hero, Algren raises his rifle in a drunken stupor and tells the audience, “My thanks on behalf of those who died in the name of better mechanical amusements and commercial opportunities.”

These words, a eulogy for the innocent Cheyenne village he helped massacre, could apply equally to Katsumoto’s samurai generation as it rides in through the mists of time, clashing with contemporary, mechanized forces on the battlefield in Japan. Even before that, Timothy Spall’s British narrator notes how “the ancient and the modern are at war” for the country’s soul.

In telling the story of Japan’s Westernization (really, its Americanization, transposed from post-World War II in a turn-of-the-millennium historical epic), director Edward Zwick relies on cinematic convention. He even repeats a scene from his own Civil War movie, Glory , where the commanding officer in dark blue deliberately rattles the non-white soldier-in-training to prove he’s not ready to hit a target under pressure. At the same time, the Japanese actors who surround Cruise in prominent roles show they’re more than capable of holding their own against the international movie star.

The Last Samurai Tom Cruise Ken Watanabe

Cruise may be the headliner, but Watanabe is the movie’s soul.

Hiroyuki Sanada plays Katusmoto’s second-in-command, Ujio, and like Watanabe, he’s another actor who’s remained in the limelight (though perhaps not enough so ) 20 years after The Last Samurai . By introducing global audiences to such talents, the film arguably did more to move the needle, representation-wise, than other 2003 releases like Lost in Translation and Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (both set in Japan, but with fewer top-billed Japanese names).

In this way, The Last Samurai managed to plant one foot in the future despite being stuck in the Eurocentric past, with Zwick and co-screenwriters John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz framing the narrative. Even Algren’s love interest, Taka (the mononymous Koyuki, fresh off Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse ), isn’t thrilled about playing house with the unwashed foreigner who killed her husband.

In the third act, Cruise predictably wears his plot armor as the movie goes full Braveheart (with the same cinematographer, John Toll). These internal tensions somewhat reflect the story’s underlying concern with the double-edged sword of progress. If nothing else, The Last Samurai was, as Watanabe alluded in The Guardian last year, a crossroads away from the kind of offensive yellowface caricatures seen in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

“Before The Last Samurai ,” Watanabe said, “there was this stereotype of Asian people with glasses, bucked teeth and a camera. It was stupid, but after [ The Last Samurai ] came out, Hollywood tried to be more authentic when it came to Asian stories.”

The Last Samurai Ken Watanabe

While not above reproach, The Last Samurai was a landmark in more authentic Hollywood representation.

The film is loosely based on real Japanese history, with Katsumoto standing in for Saigo Takamori (1828–1877), who led the Satsuma Rebellion and has been called the “last true samurai.” Starting the action in 1876 aligns it with America’s centennial as it reconfigures around Algren, who’s only out for capitalist gain until he sees the beauty of the cultural paradigm he’s worked to obliterate. That’s what The Last Samurai is really about, but it’s easy to lose sight of its broader theme when the movie is so very specific about the story it’s telling (and who’s telling it).

Katsumoto mourns the loss of traditions, something Cruise and other real-life proponents of the theatrical experience might find relatable now more than ever. These days, The Last Samurai’s widescreen visuals are relegated to your typical streaming service, Paramount+. Before it landed there, the film’s supporting cast helped prime the Academy Awards for homegrown Asian films like Parasite and Japan’s own Drive My Car . Nothing can stop progress.

tom cruise on last samurai

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The Last Samurai

2003, Adventure/Drama, 2h 34m

What to know

Critics Consensus

With high production values and thrilling battle scenes, The Last Samurai is a satisfying epic. Read critic reviews

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Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is an American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first army in the art of modern warfare. As the government attempts to eradicate the ancient Samurai warrior class in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly affected by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

Rating: R (Strong Violence|Battle Sequences)

Genre: Adventure, Drama, War, Action

Original Language: English

Director: Edward Zwick

Producer: Tom Cruise , Tom Engelman , Marshall Herskovitz , Scott Kroopf , Paula Wagner , Edward Zwick

Writer: John Logan , Edward Zwick , Marshall Herskovitz

Release Date (Theaters): Dec 5, 2003  wide

Release Date (Streaming): May 1, 2011

Box Office (Gross USA): $111.1M

Runtime: 2h 34m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: Radar Pictures, Warner Brothers, Bedford Falls Productions, Cruise-Wagner Productions

Sound Mix: Surround, Dolby SR, DTS, SDDS

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Capt. Nathan Algren

Ken Watanabe

Timothy Spall

Simon Graham

Billy Connolly

Zebulon Gant

Tony Goldwyn

Col. Bagley

Hiroyuki Sanada

Masato Harada

William Atherton

Winchester Rep

Shun Sugata

Shin Koyamada

Scott Wilson

Ambassador Swanbeck

Gen. Hasagawa

Schichinosuke Nakamura

Emperor Meiji

Chad Lindberg

Winchester Rep Assistant

Ray Godshall

Convention Hall Attendee

Masashi Odate

Omura's companion

John Koyama

Omura's bodyguard

Edward Zwick

Marshall Herskovitz

Tom Engelman

Scott Kroopf

Paula Wagner

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Critic Reviews for The Last Samurai

Audience reviews for the last samurai.

This movie is far from perfect. A predictable plot and unnecessary love interest hurt the experience, and the lack of subtitles for scenes entirely in another language can be frustrating. That being said, The Last Samurai has a lot to like. Tom Cruise is, as always, captivating, and Ken Watanabe earns his Oscar nomination. The chemistry between these two feels natural, as if they truly have a brotherly bond. The cinematography and costume design add a sense of authenticity. Hans Zimmer created another great soundtrack fitting of the time period. If you enjoy action flicks or Tom Cruise, give this movie a watch.

tom cruise on last samurai

A fascinating and inspiring epic, The Last Samurai is a powerful film. The story follows a disillusioned Civil War veteran who's recruited to train the Japanese army in Western warfare as they prepare to take on a Samurai rebellion. Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe lead the cast and give excellent performances. The directing is also quite remarkable, and captures the spiritual aspects of nature and of the Samurai culture. Additionally, the writing does an effective job at depicting the culture clashes, and at developing the characters. The score by Hans Zimmer is brilliantly done as well, perfectly complementing the film and enhancing the themes. The Last Samurai is a smart and passionate drama that's well-crafted and compelling.

"The Last Samurai" (at least for me) falls in the same category as "Troy" for being a good film, but lacking emotional resonate. Just like "Troy" the acting, the high production values, and big scale battles outdo any hiccups from the plot. The Last Samurai follows an American military advisor embracing the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy after he is captured in battle. The story is serviceable at best. Its slow pace is fitting since the protagonist is adsorbing Japan culture. This gives the audience a good idea of the protagonist steady transformation over the course of the film. However, even the film protagonist suffers from some cliche traits. Haunted by past demons, a chance of redemption, being an alcoholic, and a new found sense of honor. The whole plot is like this. For every good idea it has there is some negative to it. The primary one being an examination on war which the film has no clear stance on. The protagonist is haunted by his previous war experiences, but embraces a culture that fight with honor in war. From a viewer standpoint should we applaud the hero fighting to a keep a culture alive or be worried that our hero has not learn a nothing from his past experiences. It's this kind of uneven writing that contribute to it emotional detachment. The acting is top notch from the American and Japanese cast. Tom Cruise does play a rather cliche flawed hero, but makes the hero worth following. He never over plays his character almost as if Cruise knows the hero has been done to death. Cruise co-star Ken Wantanabe outshines him. He is able to hide his character confuse emotion perfectly. The intensity of his looks and the conviction of his lines make him shine brighter than Cruise. The villains played by Spall and Connolly are colorful, but contribute little. The same could be said with actress Koyuki who's given little to work with and not enough time to go beyond a one dimensional character. The splendid cinematography captures the well orchestrated battle scenes giving them a sense of scope and raw feel to them. These battle scenes won't stack up against a Kurosawa epic or 13 Assassins, but the battle scenes are a stunning sight to behold. The costumes are nicely detailed and even the samurai armors look convincing down to the smallest piece. The Last Samurai writing is mixed, but everything else from acting to production values justify its two and a half hour running time. You might not be emotionally invested into the film, but you will be satisfy with this epic that captures the look and entertainment of a epic.

Ha, Tom Cruise as a Japanese samurai; I suppose the next thing you're going to tell me is that he just turned fifty. No, I'm kidding, I know that Cruise isn't going David Carradine from "Kung Fu" on us, and thank goodness too, because that beard on his, or rather, "the" definitive baby face is unconvincing enough. Tom Cruise has indeed faced truly "impossible missions", like convincing people that he's not actually Xenu (Seriously, why won't he get old?), but facial hair, on the other hand, is a whole different story, brother. Okay, I suppose you get used to it after a while, but really, looking at Cruise in this film and Matthew Broderick in "Glory", I think that it's safe to say that Edward Zwick just loves slapping unconvincing facial hair on baby-faced actors (Except for DiCaprio in "Blood Diamond", though that's just because DiCaprio makes everything convincing). Shoot, as Brad Pitt made clear with that middle-aged glam-rocker do in "Legends of the Fall", Zwick just seems to love putting unconvincing hair of any kind on actors of any kind, and I say actors of any kind because Pitt doesn't so much have a baby face anymore, though that might just either be the baggage that you can expect from being Robert Redford's clone (Of all celebrities to age fast and not that well) or because Tom Cruise stole Pitt's youth in "Interview with the Vampire". Okay, seriously, I can go on all day with these Tom Cruise baby face jokes, and lord knows I would if my reviews weren't overlong enough, but hey, I've got to give it up to him that he's managed keep looking cool enough to pull off some awesome action, though definately not cool enough to pull off that...- yeah, well, you get the point. He's certainly cool enough carry this film, or at least stand among the many strengths that keeps this film running until it's "last" (sorry for that stretch) breath, which isn't to say that the film doesn't go winded by more than a few things along the way. Edward Zwick is quite decidedly a slow storyteller who will sometimes dip as low as dull, yet typically just doesn't deliver on a whole lot of bite or momentum, as this film's development segment further proves, for although it is quite a distance from dull, it is steady to a fault, though that, at the very least, is exactly what you'll be begging for once the development segment concludes and leaves the film to take an unexpected tremendous drop in momentum through a sudden burst of sobriety within the atmosphere. The body of the film rarely descends as low as dull, and reasonably picks back up on more than a few occasions, yet it does still have those occasions of dullness in the midst of consistent dryness that slows the film's steam down nearly to a crawl, and certainly to an often disengaging state. Zwick almost always tackles extremely promising projects, only to end up squandering potential through one kind of glaring misstep or another, and this film's slowness, all but alone, squanders its potential, doing so with the help of something else that Zwick all too often falls into: being too theatrical for his own good, as Zwick tends to drench his films in a consistent degree of overambition, or rather, glorification, until he hits the occasional dramatic note that he propels nearly past its breaking point, dropping his films into sweeping sentimentality that suddenly spikes momentum perhaps too high, which not only leaves the subsequent drastic drops in momentum as the film comes down from its dramatic high rather off-putting (Seriously, how many endings did "Blood Diamond" have?), but dilutes genuine dramatic effectiveness. That doesn't happen terribly often here, yet it does happen quite a number of times, as Zwick taints the film with a consistent degree of subtlety-damaging glorification, broken up by sentimentality that ranges from often disconcerting to occasionally near-cloying, while giving this film too much steam at one time, until you're left a little bit exhausted by the time we plummet back into the slowness, which now seems even slower. It's made all the worse by conventions, for although this film's basic concepts are, in quite a few ways, rather unique, that concept goes plagued by a couple of cliches that either grow more and more prevalent as the film progresses or go brought more and more to attention by Zwick's pronounced lack of subtlety. Either way, the film often treads familiar ground, until, after a while, it falls too deeply into a formula that we've seen time and again and makes it hardly hard to guess the rest, and, as you can say about nearly all other Ed Zwick films, it deserves better, yet just ends up held back by the slowness and overambition that has diluted the punch of many a potentially upstanding film that Zwick has done prior and since. That being said, Zwick rarely crafts an underwhelming film, for although he taints his visions to no end, his visions often go graced by compensation that brings the worthiness of Zwick's projects to attention just enough for you to walk away, not nearly as rewarded as you would hope, yet rewarded nevertheless, and this film is no exception to that rule. Nothing short of outstanding, the production designs reconstruct a lost era with impressive authenticity that catches your eye, supplements the believability and effectiveness of the film's substance and provides a dynamic vastness that compliments the film's sharp action sequences, which go cleverly staged, slickly choreographed and well-edited and provide genuine thrills, yet not expense of well-formed intensity that gives the action dramatic weight, because in the heat of battle, Edward Zwick tends to find his grip on resonance and leave the action to both dazzle and breathe life into the substance it's built around, which is something that can be said about the visual touches, and not just within the action. John Toll returns as Ed Zwick's go-to cinematographer and delivers as sharply as he always does, gracing the film with a lighting that marries both lushness and grit in order to fit the tone and catch your eye on any occasion, while delivering on scope that marries both a degree of broadness and a degree of tightness, giving this film is reasonably engaging epic sweep, while keeping intimate with the environment and atmosphere in order supplement the film's tones and depth. Another man who dazzles and firmly supplements the tone is, of course, my main music man, the great Hans Zimmer (A samurai film with American filmmakers, a lot of Asian cast members, a cast member as English as Timothy Spall and a German score composer; this film is multicultural as all get-out), whose spirited efforts often go misused by Zwick to exacerbate glorification and sentimentality, yet remain spirited nevertheless, as Zimmer renders his work hardly recognizable by playing with various unique combinations of good old fashion Japanese music and universal contemporary sensibilities, yet not at the expense of his trademark dynamic sweep, thus creating grand score work that doesn't simply fit the tones and themes, but amplifies them. Of course, with all of the sharpness of John Toll's and Hans Zimmer's work, they would have nothing to supplement were it not for the work of a certain other John (Hans was originally short for Johannes, which means John; you kids just got yourselves learnt), John Logan, whose story concepts are indeed worthy, with unique touches and complex depths that sadly go tainted by the conventions and other missteps within Logan's and Ed Zwick's flawed screenplay, which, even then, remains fairly strong, boasting a couple of occasions of memorably sharp dialogue, as well as lively characterization and story structure that may be familiar, yet remains reasonably worthy. The screenplay is flawed, though hits more often than not, only to find itself rather betrayed by Ed Zwick's directorial execution, which is indeed flawed, and yet, not without some high points, as Zwick does, as I said, find a grip on resonance during action, but also finds a grip on resonance when he needs to most, because with all of the film's sentimental moments and dramatic faults, when Zwick finds the proper string to pluck, he really delivers, partially with the help of the performances, particularly that of leading man Tom Cruise. True, Cruise's performance goes held back by a moderate miscast (Seriously, they should have gotten someone who can pull off that beard), as well as by the often superficial writing and direction that I spent almost all of the last paragraph and much of this paragraph going on and on about, yet still compels, as Cruise portrays the initial trauma, fierce alcoholism and broken frustration of the Nathan Algren with a striking presence and emotional range that he plays with rather skillfully as he conveys Algren's finding redemption, fear, revelation and other defining experiences and changes as the story unravels, thus making for a compelling lead performance that leaves Cruise to help in making the overall film itself as compelling as it ultimately is. The film makes many right moves, yet Zwick undercuts most all of them with his overambition and many collapses into superficiality, and that's a shame and all, yet the fact of the matter is that the film does make many right moves, and just enough for the good to well outweigh the not so good and create an epic that may not hit as much as it should have, yet boasts the occasions of genuineness, fair deal of style and consistent enjoyability needed to reward at the end of the day. In conclusion, the potentially upstanding project falls victim to Edward Zwick's trademark missteps of extended periods of slowness, if not all-out dryness, as well as overambition-driven atmospheric faults, from moments of overwhelming sentimentality to a consistent aura of pronounced unsubtlety that brings more to attention the many various story conventions and cliches that render the worthy story often predictable and help in leaving the overall final product to fall a ways behind its potential, yet still hold its own with the help of stellar production designs and action sequences, as well by striking, sweeping and lively cinematography by John Toll and score work by Hans Zimmer that supplement the tones and themes behind the story John Logan conceives well and structures reasonably well, with the hit-or-miss screenwriting assistance of director Ed Zwick, whose occasional moments of genuinely effective resonance, made all the stronger by inspired performances - particularly that of a miscast and directorially restrained, yet generally compelling Tom Cruise -, spark enough essence in "The Last Samurai" to help in making it a generally enjoyable and ultimately worthwhile epic, even with its udercutting shortcomings. 3/5 - Good

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The Last Samurai

The Last Samurai

  • Nathan Algren, a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Nathan finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.
  • In the 1870s, Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a cynical veteran of the American Civil War, who will work for anyone, is hired by Americans who want lucrative contracts with the Emperor of Japan to train the peasant conscripts for the first standing Imperial Army in modern warfare using firearms. The Imperial Omura (Masato Harada) cabinet's first priority is to repress a rebellion of traditionalist Samurai, hereditary warriors, who remain devoted to the sacred dynasty, but reject the Westernizing policy, and even refuse firearms. Yet, when his ill-prepared superior force sets out too soon, their panic allows the sword-wielding samurai to crush them. Badly wounded, Algren's courageous stand makes the samurai leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) spare his life. Once nursed to health, he learns to know and respect the old Japanese way, and participates as advisor in Katsumoto's failed attempt to save the Bushido tradition, but Omura gets repressive laws enacted. He must now choose to honor his loyalty to one of the embittered sides when the conflict returns to the battlefield. — KGF Vissers
  • In 1876--while still haunted by the massacres against the American-Indian tribes--the former Civil War veteran and now an embittered alcoholic, Captain Nathan Algren, is presented with an offer to train the inexperienced army of the Japanese emperor. However, when the untried Imperial soldiers are sent too early into battle against the seasoned men of the samurai leader, Katsumoto, Algren will find himself captured as a prisoner of war. Intent on knowing his enemy, Katsumoto spares Algren's life, only to see him, little by little, embrace Bushido: the dying code of the samurai. Now, Nathan faces an entirely new enemy. Will the last samurai find peace in his quest for redemption? — Nick Riganas
  • Set in Japan during the 1870s, this movie tells the story of Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first Army in the art of modern warfare. The Imperial Omura (Masato Harada) cabinet attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly government policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his own sense of honor to guide him. — la pointe
  • Former U.S. Army Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a bitter alcoholic traumatized by the atrocities he committed during the American Indian Wars, is approached by his former commanding officer Colonel Bagley (Tony Goldwyn) to train the newly created Imperial Japanese Army for a forward-thinking Japanese businessman Omura (Masato Harada) (an industrialist and pro-reform politician who dislikes the old samurai and shogun-related lifestyle. He quickly imports westernization and modernization while making money for himself through his railroads. Coming from a merchant family that was like many repressed during the days of Samurai rule and the cause for his extreme dislike for their nobility, he assumes a great deal of power during the Meiji Restoration and takes advantages of Meiji's youth to become his chief advisor (wielding power similar to those of the Shoguns)), who intends to use the army to suppress a Samurai-headed rebellion against Japan's new emperor Meiji (Shichinosuke Nakamura) (Credited with the implementation of the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the Emperor is eager to import Western ideas and practices to modernize and empower Japan to become a strong nation). Despite his hatred of Bagley (Algren dislikes Bagley for his role in the Washita River massacre of the Native Americans that Algren cannot get over) for his role in the Indian Wars, an impoverished Algren takes the job for the money, and is accompanied to Japan by his old friend, Sergeant Zebulon Gant. Upon arriving, Algren meets Simon Graham (Timothy Spall), a British translator knowledgeable about the samurai. Algren finds the Imperial soldiers are actually conscripted peasants that have no knowledge of firearms or battle. Early in their training, Algren is informed that the samurai are attacking one of Omura's railroads; Omura sends the army there, despite Algren's protests that they are not ready. The battle is a disaster; the undisciplined conscripts are routed, and Gant is killed. Algren fights to the last before he is surrounded; expecting to die, he is taken prisoner when samurai leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) (a warrior-poet who was once Emperor Meiji's most trusted teacher. He is displeased with Mr. Omura's bureaucratic reform policies which leads him into organizing a revolt against the Imperial Army) decides to spare him. Algren is taken to Katsumoto's village to live among his family. While he is poorly treated at first, he eventually gains the samurai's respect and actually becomes friends with Katsumoto. Algren overcomes his alcoholism and guilt and learns the Japanese language and culture. He develops sympathy for the samurai, who are upset that the pace of modern technology has eroded the traditions of their society. Algren and Taka (Koyuki Kato), Katsumoto's sister and the widow of a samurai killed by Algren, develop an unspoken affection for each other. One night, a group of ninjas infiltrate the village and attempt to assassinate Katsumoto. Algren saves Katsumoto's life, and then helps defend the village. Katsumoto requests a meeting with Emperor Meiji and is given safe passage to Tokyo. He brings Algren, intending to release him. Upon arriving in Tokyo, Algren finds the Imperial Army is now a well-trained and fully equipped fighting force. Katsumoto, to his dismay, discovers that the young and inexperienced Emperor has essentially become a puppet of Omura. At a government meeting, Omura orders Katsumoto's arrest for carrying a sword in public and asks him to perform Seppuku to redeem his honor. Algren refuses Omura's offer to lead the new army to crush the rebels, due to his sympathy. Omura sends assassins to kill Algren, but Algren kills them. Algren assists the samurai in freeing Katsumoto; in the process, Katsumoto's son Nobutada (Shin Koyamada) (Katsumoto's son who is lord of the village in which the Samurai are encamped. Nobutada befriends Algren. Katsumoto, the samurai lord, advises Nobutada to teach Algren in the Japanese way - Japanese culture and Japanese language) is mortally wounded, sacrificing himself to allow the others to escape. As the Imperial Army marches to crush the rebellion, a grieving Katsumoto contemplates Seppuku, but Algren convinces him to fight until the end, and joins the samurai in battle. The samurai use the Imperial Army's overconfidence to lure them into a trap and deprive them of artillery support. The ensuing battle inflicts massive casualties on both sides and forces the Imperial soldiers to retreat. Knowing that Imperial reinforcements are coming, and defeat is inevitable, Katsumoto orders a suicidal cavalry charge on horseback. During the charge, the samurai break through Bagley's line. Bagley is killed by Algren, but the samurai are quickly mowed down by Gatling guns. The Imperial captain, previously trained by Algren and horrified by the sight of the dying samurai, orders all of the guns to cease fire, disregarding Omura's orders. A mortally wounded Katsumoto commits Seppuku with Algren's help as the soldiers at the scene kneel in respect. Days later, as trade negotiations conclude, Algren, though injured, arrives and interrupts the proceedings. He presents the Emperor with Katsumoto's sword and asks him to remember the traditions for which Katsumoto and his fellow Samurai died. The Emperor realizes that while Japan should modernize, it cannot forget its own culture and history; he promptly rejects the trade offer. When Omura attempts to protest, the Emperor silences him by threatening to seize the Omura family assets and distribute them among the populace. While various rumors regarding Algren's fate circulate, Graham concludes that Algren had returned to the village to reunite with Taka.

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Screen Rant

Is the last samurai real at all true story explained.

The Last Samurai chronicles a real-life Japanese rebellion but fictionalizes several historical events and people. Here's what you need to know.

  • The true story of The Last Samurai adds context to the Tom Cruise period drama, sparking debates over its historical accuracy.
  • The film blends elements of history to create a fictional tale, with Cruise's character inspired by French Army officer Jules Brunet.
  • Despite inaccuracies, the movie was popular in Japan for its cultural nods and thrilling action, appreciating representation in Hollywood.

The Last Samurai true story adds a lot of context to the Tom Cruise period drama. The movie chronicles a real-life Japanese rebellion from the 19th century but fictionalizes several historical events and people. The Edward Zwick drama received four Oscar nominations upon its 2003 release and has sparked debates over the years about its subject matter and White Savior narrative. So, how much of the story is real, and how much of the true story was changed for The Last Samurai ?

The Last Samurai stars Tom Cruise as Nathan Algren, a member of the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment who served during the American Indian Wars. Algren is recruited to train the Japanese Imperial Army to fight against the samurai rebellion, led by Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu (Ken Watanabe). The two develop respect and admiration for each other as Algren learns the ways of the samurai and joins Moritsugu's forces in their final battle. However, the reality of The Last Samurai true story is complicated.

The Last Samurai is currently unavailable to stream, but can be purchased and rented from platforms such as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

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Was katsumoto moritsugu a real person, ken watanabe's the last samurai character is based on saigō takamori.

The Last Samurai's Katsumoto Moritsugu is based on the iconic Japanese samurai Saigō Takamori . In real life, Saigō initially led the Imperial forces and won the four-day Battle of Toba–Fushimi in January 1868. By 1877, he sided with rebel forces and fought in what's now known as the Satsuma Rebellion. Saigō was defeated and killed at the Battle of Shiroyama, which is the inspiration for the final extended battle sequence in The Last Samurai (and thus part of the true story).

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Who nathan algren is based on, a french army officer inspired tom cruise's the last samurai character.

Tom Cruise's character in The Last Samurai isn't based on the true story of an American soldier but is inspired by the real history of a French Army officer named Jules Brunet . In 1866, Brunet was sent to Japan to train military forces and ultimately fought in the Boshin War after refusing orders to return home. In 1867, military dictator Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned, leading to the end of a Shogun-centric world in Japan and spurring the Meiji Restoration under the 14-year-old Emperor Meiji.

The character's real-life inspiration, Brunet, served during the Second Franco-Mexican War.

Whereas The Last Samurai's Algren previously participated in both the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars, the character's real-life inspiration, Brunet, served during the Second Franco-Mexican War. He later achieved the rank Général de Division and served France until 1899.

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What the last samurai gets right about japan's meiji restoration, despite being a fictional story, the last samurai is surprisingly accurate.

The Last Samurai 's timeline is mostly accurate to the true story of history. When Algren arrives in Japan, the real-life Brunet would also have been arriving to train Japanese soldiers. Also, according to historians, the costumes and overall productions are spot-on . In general, The Last Samurai's premise is historically accurate. Japan was undergoing major cultural changes during the late 1860s, and the Emperor was indeed regarded as a "living God. "

In the span of a decade, rebels fought to retain the old way of life but were ultimately defeated. Incidentally, samurai culture ended with the failed Satsuma Rebellion, and the right to wear a katana sword in public was abolished. And so, five percent of the Japanese population — samurais — were forced to adapt.

In real life, various events unfolded over a decade, but for pacing purposes, The Last Samurai has an organic feel, almost like it is taking place within a short period.

For practical purposes, director Edward Zwick simplifies the Meiji Restoration in The Last Samurai . Katsumoto and Algren represent Samurai traditions , while Mr. Omura embodies modernity. Emperor Meiji is used in the film to show how progressive Japanese culture was influenced by Western concepts . It all builds to a battle of good vs. bad, which is essentially a stand-in for the Satsuma Rebellion.

In real life, various events unfolded over a decade, but for pacing purposes, The Last Samurai has an organic feel, almost like it is taking place within a short period. For audience clarity, Tom Cruise's narration identifies specific dates, with the final 1877 battle aligning with the real-life 1877 Satsuma Rebellion.

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Is the last samurai's story real, the tom cruise samurai movie blends elements of history to create a fictional tale.

The Last Samurai is based on real events, but the storyline involving the main characters is fabricated rather than faithful to the true story. For example, Ed Zwick and company Americanize the storyline, with Cruise bringing the spirit of Brunet's story to the big screen. For another audience hook, the screenwriters link Alpern to General George Custer and repeatedly reference the famous military leader to better understand the timeline.

Cruise's character even states that Custer "fell in love with his own legend."

Cruise's character even states that Custer "fell in love with his own legend," an ironic line given Hollywood's narrative twist on the Japanese-French source material. For one more layer of thematic accessibility, Algren explains Greek history to Katsumoto by citing the Battle of Thermopylae (the premise for Zack Snyder's 300 ), and essentially explains the concept of protecting one's homeland at all costs to the audience.

Katsumoto asks Alpern what happened to the Greek soldiers, a thematic transition to the samurais' last stand. The real-life Satsuma Rebellion did mark the end of samurai culture, along with the death of Saigō Takamori, the inspiration for Katsumoto. But an American Civil War veteran named Nathan Algren didn't help Saigō commit "seppuku," and the real-life Brunet didn't stay in Japan with Saigō's adoring sister . Brunet did play a role in the Japanese wars of the time, and Saigō did indeed sacrifice his life.

10 Best Samurai Movies Of All Time

Everything the last samurai gets wrong, the last samurai simplified a lot of the historical nuance of the true story.

Aspects of The Last Samurai true story may be accurate, but it is still regarded as a fairly historically inaccurate movie . The Meiji Restoration rebellions weren't simply about right vs. wrong, as it's suggested in the mistake-filled blockbuster The Last Samurai . Historians have explained that many samurais rebelled not because of moral righteousness but rather to sustain a "privileged" way of life.

Most samurais reportedly lived in urban areas and ultimately took on important local jobs to strengthen Japanese society. In The Last Samurai , the screenwriters conveniently have Katsumoto and company live in the mountains, which allows for a mid-movie sequence that at once spotlights Alpern's change of heart while reminding viewers that he can't escape. The Last Samurai also simplifies samurai culture for the sake of storytelling.

The U.S. wouldn't have negotiated with Japan using military technology

According to historian Jonathan Dresner , "the movie clearly can't differentiate between the individual samurai clan and the samurai class." He notes that most samurais didn't rebel in real life. He also has smaller issues with the movie's true story, specifically the idea that Japanese men of the time didn't help with housework and that the U.S. wouldn't have negotiated with Japan using military technology, as seen at the beginning of Zwick's film.

Last, even original samurai warriors reportedly used modern weapons during the Satsuma Rebellion, though it's true that they sometimes fought with traditional swords during this specific time in history. The Last Samurai essentially dramatizes the climactic battle by stripping everything down to good vs. bad, and tradition vs. progress.

It's worth noting that the Satsuma Rebellion transpired over several months and that the samurai rebels weren't exactly heavily outnumbered like the Greeks in the Battle of Thermopylae (as seen in 300) . Also, it was a Frenchman — not an American — who took his talents to Japan to instruct soldiers and then stayed for a while to help before returning to his native country for regular military duties.

10 Best Samurai Fights In Film History Ranked

When did the last samurai die, when samurai culture died out is debated.

While innumerable descendants of former samurai live on in Japan to this day, there are essentially three primary schools of thought on when the last "true" samurai died . The first belongs to samurai purists, who believe, as depicted in The Last Samurai , that the last true samurai was Saigō Takamori, with his death ending the Satsuma rebellion and samurai culture's resistance to the new Meiji government.

Tōyama's status as the true last samurai is debated due to his pivot away from samurai culture in 1881.

The second group chooses to trace pure samurai lineage, highlighting Tōyama Mitsuru as the last samurai due to his birth into the Fukuoka City samurai clan in 1855, with Tōyama living until 1944. Although Tōyama did participate in several samurai battles through his early 20s, Tōyama's status as the true last samurai is debated due to his pivot away from samurai culture in 1881, adopting a Western hairstyle and rubbing shoulders with prominent political Japanese figures.

As a result, the third group countered Tōyama's claim as the last samurai with another named Hayashi Tadataka. Hayashi is widely regarded as the last Daimyo (a feudal samurai leader) of Jouzai, who fought in the Boshin war until 1868. Finding peace within the Meiji government as an older man while retaining many of his samurai traditions, Tadataka lived until 1941, making him the last true samurai for many.

Zwick's The Last Samurai certainly takes the stance that Saigō was the last true samurai, but this question remains one that elicits fervent historical debate to this day. While the true story of when the last samurai died differs depending on historical semantics and will likely never be definitively answered, The Last Samurai has undoubtedly led to a rejuvenated discussion of samurai culture over the past two decades.

10 Best Samurai Films, Ranked According to IMDb

Why the last samurai was popular in japan despite inaccuracies, the movie proved popular despite its criticisms.

When tackling historical dramas based in other countries, studios must ensure that movies are accurate to avoid misrepresenting or offending that culture. Despite all of its inaccuracies, The Last Samurai was received pretty well in Japan. Just as the exaggerated cowboy myths touted in the Western genre are to America, so was The Last Samurai to Japan. Westerns have always acted as symbolic of American culture rather than a blow-by-blow recreation, and they are celebrated nonetheless, as seen in Akira Kurosawa's samurai movies .

There were plenty of incorrect elements in the feature film, such as Ninjas depicted in the Meiji era, Algren seeing the Emperor while wielding a sword, or being able to see Mt. Fuji from Yoshino. However, these inconsistencies didn't seem to bother Japanese filmgoers on the whole, as they appreciated its cultural nods and thrilling action. The cast also assisted the reception of The Last Samurai by the people of Japan, particularly when it came to Ken Watanabe and Tom Cruise's presence in the film.

10 Must Watch Japanese Movies That Aren't Kurosawa

Movies like Memoirs of a Geisha weren't as liked in Japan because they didn't cast Japanese people in Japanese roles. The Last Samurai at least gave Japanese people a voice in their respective parts, which brought a more representative tone to the movie. Ken Watanabe defended The Last Samurai seeing it as an opportunity for Japanese representation in a Hollywood movie and it earned him an Oscar nomination for his role of Katsumoto. In addition, Tom Cruise has a great reputation in Japan.

The action star is well-known for doing long interviews and events with children, and he has a strong overall PR presence in the country. Not only that, but Cruise attempted to learn and speak Japanese in The Last Samurai , which earned admiration from Japanese citizens. So, while The Last Samurai presented a lot of historical inaccuracies, the people of Japan considered the film a decent homage to Japanese culture as a whole.

The Last Samurai

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The True Story Behind 'The Last Samurai'

Tom Cruise plays an American fighting alongside the Samurai. But how much of this story is based on real history?

The Big Picture

  • The Last Samurai is a fictionalized account of Japan's past, blending entertainment with historical events.
  • The film follows an American military officer who embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy.
  • While loosely based on real characters and events, the movie takes creative liberties and isn't entirely historically accurate.

When you see a movie poster that says the film is "based on a true story," it's fairly understood that there are going to be at least some Hollywood changes made, rendering the film less than 100% historically accurate. However, before it was easy to research on the internet what was fact from fiction, it was tough to know whether you were watching an accurate history lesson or a blend of Hollywood and an encyclopedia. One film that left many moviegoers wondering was 2003's The Last Samurai . Although this movie was constructed to resemble a first-hand account of Japan's past, the truth was that plenty of it was created for entertainment purposes . This leads to the question of what was the real story behind The Last Samurai.

The Last Samurai

An American military advisor embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy after he is captured in battle.

What Happens in 'The Last Samurai'?

The depiction of the Samurai is nothing new in TV and film. This Edward Zwick -directed movie starred Tom Cruise as an American military officer who was hired by the Japanese government to train their army to combat the rising rebellion led by a group of outcast Samurai warriors . These warriors fought to resist Japan's rapidly growing modernization, which had been influenced by Western cultures. Cruise's character, Captain Nathan Algren, is there for a paycheck with no allegiance to the Japanese government whatsoever. In fact, Algren is facing his own demons with his involvement in the American-Indian wars.

The leader of the Samurai warriors is Katsumoto ( Ken Watanabe ), a compassionate yet deadly swordsman who heads the rebellion. In the first battle between the Algren-led Japanese forces and the Samurai, the American leader defeats a prominent warrior, resulting in him avoiding execution when captured. However, during his time with the Samurai, Algren learns to not only respect and understand the reasons for this rebellion but also how to fight like a Japanese warrior. Eventually, he joins the rebels to fight alongside them against the Imperial army. All of this makes for a highly entertaining film, yet it only somewhat borrows from the actual events that occurred during that time period.

The Samurai Helped Unify Japan

History, as well as many old and new Samurai productions, like FX's Shōgun , has taught us that the Samurai were highly skilled warriors from Japan , emerging during the Heian period, which fell between the years of 794 to 1185 AD. Following a strict code of conduct and ethics called Bushido , the leading warrior faction at the time focused on loyalty, self-discipline, and especially honor. Contrary to what many might believe, the Samurai were not only swordsmen but also served as protectors and guards, possessing many other skills such as archery and horse riding. There is no doubt that the Samurai were a force to be reckoned with.

By the mid-1300s, the Samurai had become a well-established military elite culture separate from the commoners. They grew so powerful that they began to obtain political influence during Japan's period of government instability. Somewhere between 1400 and 1600, known as the Sengoku period , the Samurai reached the peak of their political and physical strength, possessing significant influence over the country. Their will and discipline helped unify Japan and brought stability to the nation.

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With this new stability, the Samurai became more involved in government and civil issues as battles became less frequent. The combination of politicians and Samurai brought about a period of more cultural and intellectual pursuits. However, in the late 19th century, Japan underwent rapid modernization under the influence of Western powers . Intensely focused on preserving their culture and heritage, The Samurai rejected this expansion and change, resulting in them becoming outcasts of rebellion and ultimately leading to the Boshin War. This type of conflict is nothing new, as there have been plenty of Japanese stories depicting wars and battles .

Tom Cruise’s Character in 'The Last Samurai' Is Based on Jules Brunet

It's important to point out that the story of The Last Samurai was mostly fictionalized, and, although they did play a part in Western influence accessing Japan and what led to this story, America played little part in this chapter. While Tom Cruise's character, Captain Nathan Algren, is based on a real person named Jules Brunet , he was a member of the French military that came over to Japan during the Boshin War . The Boshin War was a clash between the Japanese government and the Samurai rebellion in response to the West's influence on modernizing Japan. The Tokugawa Shogunate, who'd previously held a centuries-long grip on Japanese rule, needed assistance in combating the Meiji Emperor. Having a positive relationship with the French and Napolean III , the Shogunate reached out to their allies, leading them to acquire Brunet, a highly decorated artillery expert, to help arm and advise their military.

Much like other characters featured in other Samurai films, there are often as many untruths as there are facts. For example, true is the fact that Brunet developed sympathy for the Samurai’s cause and eventually sided with them to fight against the imperial Japanese forces. However, despite the epic conclusion of the film’s last stand, the alignment of the fates of Algren and Brunet is hit-and-miss. Brunet fought alongside the Samurai through the Battle of Hakodate, where the Samurai, led by Saigao Takamori, made their last stand, but he fled back to France with some comrades following their defeat . The Japanese Empire, having re-established their power, sought to have him pay for opposing them. Still, Brunet was protected by the French government and put back in their military, where he continued his tenure through the Franco-Prussian War and the French Commune of 1871.

Ken Watanabe’s ’The Last Samurai’s Character Is Based on a True Samurai Leader

As for the leader of the Samurai rebellion, Ken Watanabe portrayed the character Mortisugu Katsumoto, who held a significant role in both the movie and history. Similarly to Algren, this character was also loosely based on a real Samurai warrior. Katsumoto can be directly linked to the iconic Japanese Samurai Saigō Takamori . Takamori strongly opposed and resisted the Japanese government's sudden transition from traditional culture and feudalism to Western-like modernization. His vocal opposition was a major wedge between the traditional faction and the Meiji government. Like the film's character, Takamori wouldn't budge from his commitment to traditional Samurai culture, values, and an intense sense of honor. He and the rest of the rebels believed that preserving Japan's traditional culture was paramount , even over the growing influence of Western powers on the country's government.

Katsumodo's eventual demise at the end of The Last Samurai was that of a leader fighting to a dramatic death to defend his people and his beliefs. However, in reality, Takamori's death took place long after the events the film depicts. Following the Battle of Hakodate, Takamori joined the Meiji government, where he rose to lead their military as a general by 1873 . This wouldn't last as he'd retire in protest of the Meiji government . According to Mark Ravina's work in his book "The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori," Saigo returned to his hometown of Kagoshima and opened schools called Shi-Gakko, where he trained former Samurai. After leaving his position, the political pressure dissolving the Samurai class continued, causing a desire to rebel among his students. As a result of the mounting pressure and actions taken by the Meiji, Saigo was forced to declare war, taking 15,000 soldiers into a final stand during 1877's Satsuma Rebellion. Although the specifics of his death aren't clear, by the end of this brutal battle , Saigo was critically wounded and committed Seppukku .

While Not Completely Accurate, ‘ The Last Samurai ’ Has Historical Merit

When comparing the real-life main characters of The Last Samurai to actual history, it's also interesting to examine the reality of the Japanese conflict itself. The Meiji Restoration , which occurred from roughly 1868 to 1912, marked the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the rise of imperial control under Emperor Meiji. The government, previously connected with the Samurai and their traditional values, was replaced by military rule focused on modernization. With increasing Western influence in the Meiji Empire , the Samurai felt they had no choice but to separate and form a rebellion to reclaim their rapidly changing countr y. In contrast to what The Last Samurai portrayed, the clash between the government and the rebels lasted longer than a few uneven battles.

Despite the efforts of the Samurai, they were eventually defeated by the Meiji Imperial forces , and the focus on modernization and industrial progress continued to shape Japan's government. The real Samurai rebellion was much more complex than what The Last Samurai depicts. The rebels were not just warriors who broke away from the Japanese imperial government; they were also advocates for preserving the country's centuries-old values and culture. Focusing back on the film, The Last Samurai has faced criticism due to it being racially insensitive and a historically inaccurate film . However, Watanabe, himself, has come out in defense of it , saying "I just thought we had the opportunity to depict Japan in a way that we were never able to before. So we thought we were making something special." Regardless of the side one argues, it's unfortunate that the movie doesn't make much light of the history it's based on and instead casts Cruise as its Great White hero.

The Last Samurai is currently available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

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‘His Energy Was Intimidating’

The last samurai director ed zwick on the “joyous, challenging, and exhausting” experience of working with tom cruise..

tom cruise on last samurai

For years, Edward Zwick was primarily known as a television guy. He had come up through the TV ranks and had created, along with his writing and producing partner, Marshall Herskovitz, the hit series Thirtysomething . Later, he would also executive-produce the well-received Once and Again and My So-Called Life . Along the way, however, he also became a director of cinematic spectacles. Glory (1989) and Legends of the Fall (1994) were big award-winning period epics. Courage Under Fire (1996) and The Siege (1998) were topical, large-scale dramas.

In his lively new memoir, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood , Zwick tells lots of stories about his up-and-down journey through the film and television industries. Among the most fascinating is his account of the making of 2003’s The Last Samurai , a rousing war epic about a 19th-century rebellion by a group of samurai opposed to the rapid westernization of Japan. In it, Tom Cruise plays an alcoholic American officer, haunted by his role in the Indian Wars, who joins in with Ken Watanabe’s Lord Moritsugu Katsumoto, the leader of the uprising and the “last samurai” of the film’s title. (At one point, Zwick writes, Russell Crowe called him about trying to play the Katsumoto character.)

The film was a huge hit, and today it feels emblematic of a bygone era of entertaining, star-driven period adventures. It’s also revered in the stunt community for its elaborate action sequences, full of impressive riding and sword-fighting, and its sprawling battle scenes. “It wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia , but we tried,” Zwick writes. The story of its making offers an insightful glimpse into what it takes to mount such a massive production with the biggest star in the world.

Excerpt from ‘HITS, FLOPS, AND OTHER ILLUSIONS’

Until this moment in my career, getting a movie made had been a war of attrition. The subjects that interested me never seemed to fall neatly into a category that was easy for executives to understand, by which I mean, to sell. I’d come to expect a kind of siege mentality — haranguing, shaming, whining, bullying, and generally making myself so annoying that I occasionally managed to wear them down until they gave me a start date. Such difficult births are quite common in the business. Every year during the orgy of self-congratulations we immodestly call “awards season,” you can count on someone in a tuxedo giving a tearful acceptance speech citing the decades of rejection that preceded such a halcyon moment. So much of Hollywood studio culture is fear-based: executives afraid that the wrong decision could cost them their jobs. I was accustomed to a gradual and sometimes grudging process of acceptance, often taking several weeks of dailies, or a first cut, sometimes even a successful preview for them to get excited about what they had on their hands. The reasons a studio decides to make a film are often quite obscure unless we’re talking about a superhero movie or big IP (intellectual property). On such corporate crusades, long before a single frame is filmed, a legion of marketers, accountants, and distributors have already run the numbers on its profit-and-loss profile, a release date has been set, and an advertising campaign is underway. But the path of a “one-off” (that’s what they now call regular movies) as it struggles to swim against the mainstream is littered with revised drafts and broken hearts. Deliberately or not, a studio will do anything it can to make a script more “accessible.” One thing you learn, when they call it a “passion project,” you know you’re in trouble.

The Last Samurai was an entirely different experience: the only time it felt like a studio was genuinely enthusiastic about what I had in mind. The movie had a green light from the moment Tom said yes. It was like the no-bid, cost-plus contracts I’d heard about between military contractors and the Defense Department. A million dollars of R&D to scout locations, hire department heads, and figure out logistics? No problem. A trip to Japan to do research and meet actors? Let us make the reservations for you! You want to shoot on three continents? Great idea! Within weeks we were in headlong prep. My first trip to Japan was overwhelming; I visited museums, met historians, and traveled all over the country. There was so much I didn’t know, and even more that we’d gotten wrong in the script. Since at least a third of the movie would be in Japanese, I needed help with the dialogue. The great screenwriter Yô Takeyama agreed to join me.

Vickie Thomas (the casting director whose impeccable taste I’ve come to rely on for 20 years) had arranged for me to meet Yôko Narahashi in Tokyo. Yôko’s ostensible role would be to help cast the movie, but it was soon clear she would be much more to me than a casting director. Bicultural and brilliant — her father had been the Japanese ambassador to Sweden — she was also a theater director and a teacher with her own acting school. In addition to serving as my translator and interlocutor, her insights into the nuances of culture and behavior, on set and off, saved me from innumerable gaffs, while her intimate knowledge of her country’s unusual casting traditions was a godsend. Like many institutions in Japan, casting was often hierarchical. To play a part like Katsumoto, starring opposite Tom Cruise, it was assumed that Hiroyuki Sanada — often referred to as the “Tom Cruise of Japan” — would be cast in the role. But upon meeting Ken Watanabe, I was so taken with his unusual blend of strength, humor, and emotional availability that I decided to cast him.

Upon hearing of my choice of Ken, the Japanese representatives from Warner Bros. made no secret of their displeasure. They informed the executives back in Burbank that this was a terrible faux pas . It was Hiroyuki Sanada himself who came to the rescue. By agreeing to play Ujio, Katsumoto’s majordomo, he was making a strong statement in support of Ken and the movie. I couldn’t have known that after surviving a battle with leukemia years before, Ken had found himself in debt to shady managers; at that time, the Yakuza was heavily involved in the business. To pay them off, for several years he had been obliged to play whatever roles on Japanese TV came his way, no matter how uninspiring, and it had hurt his career. In our early rehearsals, Ken seemed somewhat tentative, but Sanada’s deference never failed to endow his presence with the necessary aplomb. Day by day as his self-confidence grew, so did Ken’s performance. By the time we were ready to shoot, he had grown into the role, owning not just his size as the character but as a leading man going mano a mano with the biggest movie star in the world.

While reading a book about the Meiji dynasty I had seen a picture of an ancient monastery and asked if we could visit it. It turned out that the 700-year-old Buddhist compound was located atop a mountain outside Himeji, a midsize city. To reach it required taking a rickety funicular. But once there, walking the hand-hewn floors through temples shrouded in clouds was like being cast back in time. When I told the Warner physical production people I wanted to use it as Katsumoto’s home, I expected to be laughed out of their office. But I had forgotten this was a Tom Cruise movie. They figured out a way to make it work. There were just as many things I would have liked to shoot in Japan that proved too costly; there simply wasn’t the kind of open space and vistas we needed to stand in for the pastoral splendor of 19th-century Japan. I had been to New Zealand once before with my wife and kids for a backpacking trip on the Routeburn Track, a three-day trek through alpine meadows, emerald-green tarns, prehistoric ferns, and spectacular vistas. It was a north-south mountain range, as was Japan’s. Lilly Kilvert, John Toll, and I spent weeks flying up and down the North and South Islands in a helicopter ordinarily reserved for the prime minister (a Tom Cruise movie, remember?) until we found a pristine valley in which to build Katsumoto’s village. There, Lilly would bring Japanese carpenters to build the houses in the traditional sashimono style of wood joinery without nails. She also began planting rice paddies that wouldn’t be shot until the following spring.

Back in L.A., it was a cold, rainy winter. One wet evening, Marshall Herskovitz and I were scheduled to meet with Tom about the script. In addition to helping me produce the movie, Marshall had joined me in the rewrite — not only because the burdens of preproduction were beginning to overwhelm me but because, much as I hated to admit it, I knew his unique gift would bring the script to the next level. Also, because he insisted. He has a great love of the epic form, and his ideas and criticisms, however painful to hear, were brilliant. Tom quickly recognized Marshall’s ear for dialogue as well as his gift for sly humor and began to rely on him. This became something I depended on more and more as the demands of shooting drew closer.

After Marshall and I finished another draft, I got a call from Robert Towne’s assistant asking if I was available to meet. I knew that Towne — one of the few living writers in my personal pantheon — had an informal arrangement with Tom whereby he sometimes quietly rewrote his movies. I drove over to his house in the Pacific Palisades, harboring more than a little dread. Had Tom asked him to rewrite us? It turned out Towne didn’t want to talk about the script, except to point out several things he’d enjoyed. Apparently, he just wanted to take my measure. Still, as we spent a pleasant couple of hours talking about John Fante novels, it did feel like he was giving me his blessing.

That night, Marshall and I arrived at Tom’s house for a meeting and were told he was down at the tennis court. We followed a winding path through the fog toward the sound of strange percussive whacks, each accompanied by loud, guttural cries. Below us, we could barely make out five spectral figures hacking at each other with wooden swords. Though principal photography was still six months away, Tom was already working out every day, determined to do the scene where Algren takes on four assailants in a single take without a cut, chanbara style, as in the old samurai movies. No stuntman was going to play his part.

There was one stunt we knew would be too dangerous. The moment the samurai are first revealed, emerging on horseback out of the misty forest, needed to be violent and terrifying. As we had written it, Algren, a former cavalry officer, draws his saber and fights while on horseback. As the conclusion of the sequence, Marshall and I had imagined him getting T-boned — his horse deliberately struck by another horseman, with Algren knocked to the ground and his horse falling on top of him. There was no way to do the stunt with Tom on a real horse, where the slightest wrong movement could put his head in the path of a swinging metal sword, nor could we really have one horse hit another, let alone have Tom’s horse fall on top of him. So how to do it?

These days it would all be done with CG, but that was still years away. To shoot it in cuts using a stuntman would inevitably look staged and give the gag away. It was Paul Lombardi, our special-effects guru, who suggested building an animatronic horse. It took months of experimentation, repeated failure, and reimagination, but six months and a million dollars later, Tom Cruise is fighting on horseback in the middle of a mêlée, or so it appears, and the real Tom Cruise has a live horse falling on him. I’ve never counted how many seconds of the fake horse — Wilbur, as he affectionately came to be known — are in the final cut, and I defy anyone to identify him without going frame by frame. All I know is they’re the most expensive frames of any film I’ve ever shot.

Our first day of shooting was in the Buddhist monastery. Riding up the funicular at dawn, we were enveloped by clouds. Moments later we broke through to be confronted with what looked for all the world like a cliché — the perfectly round, bright-red sun of the Nippon flag rising over distant mountains and setting the ancient temples aglow. Soon after, the entire crew gathered under the gaze of a 14-foot-high Buddha. Surrounded by hundreds of lit candles and dizzying incense, we accepted the monks’ blessings of good luck for the film. At lunch they even made us seasonal bento boxes of sashimi adorned with colorful fall leaves. It was as magical a time as I’ve ever had on set.

After lunch we were to shoot the first scenes to be performed entirely in Japanese. I’ll admit to being a bit nervous, yet as soon as the actors began to speak, I realized that although I couldn’t understand the words, their intentions were perfectly clear. At first, I’d confer with Yôko after every take. Did their performances seem natural? Were their line readings correct? If I had an adjustment, she would communicate it to the actors. But after a while, I began to allow my instincts to guide me. These were scenes we’d written ourselves, after all, so it made sense I might be able to follow along with its beats and rhythms. It was, I suppose, what directing silent films must have been like. Most surprising was how many times I’d see Yôko nod her head after I said I preferred a particular take. Remarkably, it was often her favorite as well. I was especially pleased as Ken’s sense of humor began to inform his performance. Over the course of a taxing shoot, that quality would prove to be a saving grace. He is one of the most delightful, soulful men I’ve ever met.

We shot in Japan for two weeks, mostly in Kyoto. After we wrapped on the  last night, Sanada took Ken, Marshall, Yôko, and me to his favorite karaoke bar.  I walked in expecting something glitzy and high end. It was just the opposite. No  bigger than a ship’s stateroom, there were only five seats at the bar, and Sanada  had reserved the place just for us. It’s possible he knew just how boisterous we  would get. When Sanada entered, I thought the bartender was going to faint. It  turned out, in addition to Yôko’s many talents, she was also a songwriter whose  tunes were there on the jukebox. Ken turned out to have a spectacular voice and  loved to sing American pop standards. (He would go on to be nominated for a  Tony for his performance in The King and I .) One of my favorite memories of  all time is seeing Marshall, a nondrinker, shit-faced for the first time in our long  friendship, clutching the mic and crooning “Danny Boy” at the top of his voice in  a rich basso profundo.

We flew back to L.A. for the second leg of our worldwide production. It’s hard to describe my wonder and delight as I walked onto the Burbank lot and found the famous New York Street completely transformed into Tokyo, 1876. Lilly’s production design was a marvel: every detail from the live eels to the wood joinery. Same with costume designer Ngila Dickson’s hand-painted kimonos and gleaming armor.

On our first day of shooting in Burbank, I happened to glance behind me and see Steven Spielberg. Moments later, David Fincher appeared, and then Cameron Crowe. How coincidental that they’d all “just happened” to be on the lot that day. I would later discover each was courting Tom to be in their movies and this was a chance to get a bit of face time. I will confess to being the tiniest bit self-conscious giving direction with that intimidating trio on my six (as they say in Top Gun ). But their visit prompted an oddly charming and very revealing reaction from Tom. While Fincher, Crowe, Marshall, and I were chatting behind my chair, the still photographer asked if he could take a picture. Tom must have been with Spielberg at the time, but when he heard about it, he asked for a copy and had himself photoshopped into the shot. Apparently, even movie stars have FOMO.

tom cruise on last samurai

Shooting went well the first week, and then we hit our first speed bump. It seems the neighboring houses had grown tired of the noise caused by productions shooting deep into the night and had gotten wind that we were planning more late nights by the little pond at the border of the studio known as “Gilligan’s Lagoon.” That’s where we had built a set for Katsumoto’s Tokyo home. As a compromise we agreed to shoot split days — from noon until midnight — rather than work all night long.

We had already agreed not to use black powder in the antique rifles — again, because of the noise. The solution by the armorer was to turn the weapons into what essentially were battery-operated toys. When the trigger was pulled, a flash would appear, followed by a puff of smoke. The sound would then be added in post. It sounded swell in theory, but from the outset of shooting Katsumoto’s escape we discovered the gag rarely worked, and even when it did, it took far too long to reload for the next take. After only an hour of shooting, we were several hours behind.

Going into the second night of filming the sequence, we had lost at least half a day and I was getting worried. How would the studio respond to us falling behind so soon? To executives always ready to panic about the budget, it would augur worse to come. At lunch — in this case, that meant 6 p.m. — I was scheduled to have a meeting with the marketing department. Sweaty and stinking from the pond, I walked into a huge conference room and found it brimming with no less than 40 smiling faces. For an hour they regaled me with their plans for the movie’s release: billboards, talk shows, magazine covers, trailers, international premieres. I did my best to pay attention while unable to banish the single thought hammering my brain — We’re behind. We’re behind. How bad will it be tonight? 

It got worse. A couple of hours later, while still moving at a crawl, I was waiting for a lighting setup that was taking much too long (night lighting setups always take too long) and anxiety-mainlining peanut M&M’s at the craft-services table when Tom ambled up. He greeted me with his usual, peppy “How’s it going?!” I wasn’t in the mood to respond in kind.

“I don’t know,” I moaned, “the sequence isn’t really working. Those stupid  guns are killing us. We’re already behind and I’m worried we’re going to have to come back and reshoot at least half of it.” He listened as I went on. Then he  looked off into the night.

That was all he said before touching my shoulder and walking away. I stood  there, confused. Couldn’t he tell I was upset? Had he been in this situation so  many times that he just took it in stride? It was then that I began to realize the gulf  between my experience and Tom’s. No matter how many movies I’d made until  then, no matter how many battles I’d had with studios, or times I’d gone over  schedule, there was still some part of me that needed to be a good boy.

When I ran into Marshall, I recounted my non-conversation with Tom. Mar shall smiled and said, “He knows there’s not going to be a card in the credits that says, ‘This movie was made on schedule.’ ” Then he touched my shoulder exactly the way Tom had done and headed back to the set. Later that night, as I was setting up a shot, Cruise was passing by and stopped. “How ya doing, boss?”

“Better,” I said.

“Good, GOOD! You know what we get to do tonight?”

“MAKE A MOVIE!”

As he walked away, I realized I’d missed the subtext of our earlier interaction.  It had been Tom’s nonconfrontational way of reminding me I was the director, and  that directing was a samurai job. He didn’t want to see me shaken. We were going  to be shooting for another hundred days. If I was willing to compromise now, I  might compromise tomorrow, and that’s not the way he rolled.

I called the studio in the morning and told them we needed to reshoot. They didn’t say a word in protest.

After New Year’s, our huge traveling circus moved to its third continent. New Zealand was a dream. My family and I stole a delirious week in a house by the Tasman Sea before production started up again. The bracing weather changed hourly as storms moved in and out while we explored snowcapped mountains, shadowed glens of dense ferns, and fog-shrouded fjords. My daughter learned to surf, and my son went backpacking. I even had time to remember I was married. Sooner than I would have liked, Kevin de la Noy called to say I needed to come into the production office. Kevin had taken over as line producer once the scope of our ambitions revealed the need for someone of his unique genius. I had first met Kevin 15 years before when he was the location scout on the first incarnation of Shakespeare in Love . In the years since, this English logistics genius had risen to rockstar status: planning the logistics for the climactic battle in Braveheart , organizing the beach assault in Saving Private Ryan . I could hear in his usually jolly voice that he was beginning to suspect his greatest challenge loomed in the weeks ahead.

There are few Japanese in New Zealand. How then to populate the cities, seaports, and villages we had built? The answer was obvious: bring them over. This would prove harder than it seemed. In addition to auditioning thousands of “fighting extras” so as to find 700 with the ability to learn 19th-century fighting tactics, rounding up another couple hundred women and children, getting them all the necessary visas, and then leasing the 747s to fly them in, Kevin had to create an entire colony of translators, doctors, and chefs to accommodate them all.

Our base of operations was New Plymouth, a small oil-and-gas town on the  North Island. Within a week it looked like an occupying army had taken over.  Every laborer with a pickup truck was put to work, every piece of heavy machinery was commandeered. The restaurants and hotels were booming. As the  extras came to recognize me as their meishu (a classier honorific than “director”),  I couldn’t walk down the street to buy toothpaste without accepting and returning  any number of gracious bows. Not that I minded.

In addition to the Japanese cast I had hired Tony Goldwyn as Colonel Bagley, Algren’s former superior officer in the Seventh Cavalry, and Billy Connolly as Sergeant Zebulon Gant, in what I liked to think of as the Victor McLaglen role — the gruff, stalwart noncom straight out of a John Ford movie. Tony, a talented director himself, was a joy to be with, on set and off, while Billy was irrepressibly funny in the way I imagined working with Robin Williams must have been. At times I literally had to beg him to stop making us laugh so we could get back to work. Ken Watanabe’s commanding performance continued to thrill me while I came to count on Sanada’s vast experience in martial arts (known as Seiten wo Tsuke , literally “reach beyond the blue sky”) to help me stage the many fighting scenes. Koyuki, the actress playing the role of Taka, Algren’s reluctant host, was the greatest revelation. Her understanding of period behavior was expressed with exquisite simplicity and elevated every scene.

Working with Tom was joyous, challenging, and exhausting. His energy was  intimidating. It may sound surprising, but the one formative experience we had in  common was that we both wrestled in high school. Like all wrestlers, we shared a  tolerance for hard work and punishment. Tom was in every scene for 120 shooting  days, yet he never showed the slightest sign of fatigue, not even after getting the  shit kicked out of him by Sanada take after take in the mud and pouring rain.  Tom likes to think of himself as being chased by a shark, which he means metaphorically. I hope. His mantra when giving notes is, “How can we ratchet up the  pressure on my character?” By which he means, he wants a bigger shark.

He is also legendarily, at times maddeningly , self-confident, no matter if it’s about doing a dangerous stunt or a six-page dialogue in a single take. But there were times that very self-assurance could look opaque on film. And it was the opposite of what I wanted to see in him when, on the eve of the final battle, he has to say good-bye to Higen, the son of the man he killed. We were to shoot the scene at magic hour, an ineffably beautiful time in the village we’d constructed in New Zealand. Given that Algren knows he probably won’t ever see it again, I thought the fading light was appropriate. But it also meant Tom would have time for no more than a single take. This, I thought, gave it a degree of difficulty much higher than the most difficult stunt. If I hoped to get him to the right emotional place, I felt I needed to touch some vulnerable part in him that I’d yet to see him reveal in the movie.

I don’t mean to suggest he wasn’t completely open to my direction. If I had asked him to do a scene while standing on his head, I’m convinced he would have been willing to try. If I had said, “Listen, Tom, could you be just a tad more emotionally revealing in this scene?” he would have given his all. But the result would have invariably ended up feeling forced — precisely because he was trying to give me what I wanted. I didn’t want him to try to make something happen. I wanted it to happen.

While filming their earlier scenes together I had noticed how sweet and attentive Tom had been with the young actor playing Higen. Over the months of getting to know Tom, I’d also observed how close he was to his 8-year-old son, Connor. As the crew scurried to make ready, we were already losing the light. I took Tom aside.

“Tell me about your son,” I said.

He looked at me, surprised. I knew Connor had just returned to L.A. and  Tom wouldn’t be seeing him for a while. For a moment Tom was quiet. And then  he began to talk. It doesn’t matter what he said in those few short moments in the  fading light. I watched as he looked inward, and a window seemed to open and  his eyes softened.

“Go,” I said, gently nudging him into position on the porch. He nailed the  scene with the depth of feeling I had loved in his best performances. I should also  mention his Japanese pronunciation was spot-on.

The light was gone. The AD called, “Wrap.” As Tom walked past me on his  way down the mountain, he caught my eye and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Excerpted from HITS, FLIPS, AND OTHER ILLUSIONS: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood by Ed Zwick. Copyright © 2024 by Ed Zwick. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood

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tom cruise on last samurai

Interviews: Tom Cruise on The Last Samurai !

Tom Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren in the amazing new epic film, The Last Samurai , from director Edward Zwick. In the Warner Bros. feature, Algren is hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country’s first army in the art of modern warfare. As the Emperor attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly government policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai.

ComingSoon.net sat down to talk to Cruise who says he’s always been fascinated by other cultures. “One of the great things about being an actor is I get to travel to these places,” he says. “I get to learn about the people and that is the most enjoyable thing to me, to learn the history of other people and how people live in their daily lives, and even though the language is different, you find that common ground of joy, happiness, pain. It’s the humanity and it really gives you a sense of we’re all in this thing together here, that’s why we gotta help each other out and I really enjoy that.”

Cruise says that he put quite a lot of time in preparing for the project. “It took me almost a year to physically be able to make this picture. I love what I do, I take great pride in what I do and I can’t do something half way, three quarters, nine tenths. If I’m going to do something I go all the way. And I didn’t know if I could do it, honestly. If I could find that kind of physical elegance and movement that the Samurai have. I looked at Hiro [Sanada] and Ken [Watanabe] and there’s a natural grace of them as actors. It was a year preparing, not only physically, but it was developing the character because the transition that the character makes, I kept copious amounts of notes so that I could remember, for the training sequences, where Algren starts and where he ends up. I had to study the American-Indian War. I’m an American, I thought I knew a lot about the American-Indian Wars and that time period in our history, which I was blown away at how little I knew. And also the Japanese history during that time period, how the country came to this moment. Also I went and revisited the Civil War again for myself just because Algren had lived through that time period and I collected a small library.”

Physically, Cruise went through a lot of training to get into top shape. “I couldn’t touch my toes when I started. I put on 25 pounds for the picture, I was 25 pounds of muscle heavier than I am right now. I worked with a great stunt coordinator, Nick Powell, who built me up very slowly. He did all kinds of Chinese sword work to build up my forearms and my shoulders just to be able to make that movement, the rotation. A lot of stretching and just training and doing the sequences, building it up and learning the moves and

working, working, working, working. Working on it the same way that Aldren did in the training. I spent a year being able to do that. You see the first time that he moves in the village, and then by the end of the movie there’s a grace that I was going for. And I have to say the guys I worked with were excellent.”

We asked Tom what it was like working with a mostly Japanese cast. “They were very generous with me. I felt their support and we’d done so much research, they validated the research that we had done. I think they were a little surprised how extensive it was, the wardrobe, the sets, the history that we knew. And Ed wanted to know different ceremonies that you see in the film. It informed the film, it informed us about their culture. That’s something we discovered through rehearsal when we were making the film. I’d always say, ‘What do you think? How do you feel?’ I like a sense of family. When I’m making a film, it’s not about me. It’s about the movie, it’s about us together, working together. So I really depend on that kind of support from everyone. When it comes together, the film is much easier to make when everyone’s going in the same direction, working together. It’s a great feeling and I really felt that from Ken, from Hiro, from everyone involved. When I was speaking Japanese, Hiro actually came in and worked with me on my accent. They gave that kind of support throughout the entire film. I was excited the first day of rehearsal to meet the Japanese actors. I was very excited, I’d seen the tapes, Ed had met them and I was really excited to meet them. What’s it going to be like? I want to learn more about their culture. You just find that you have so much in common. It was great fun, great fun.”

In the film, Cruise’s character is put in a house which includes a child that he grows close to. He says that he was able to work well with young Japanese actor. “He doesn’t speak English, so we would draw pictures to each other back and forth. We had a wonderful communication together so he started imitating me, making all these things. I found out that he wanted to fly airplanes and he liked that I flew airplanes, so we were drawing each other airplanes back and forth. And he’s just a character, you know, he’s just an absolute character, wonderful.”

The role also required a lot of stunts and Tom put a lot of trust in the stunt crew. “The movie needed that level or realism and it was part of the challenge for me to be able to do it, and I got through it. You’re talking about those battle sequences that are twelve hours a day, so I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how to take care of myself and pace myself. This movie was a marathon, so I’ve gotten very good at scheduling the scene and preparing myself for it, saving the energy, conserving the energy, knowing when to go for it and having the available reserves to be able to do that. You have to think about that because at the end of the day, you might be doing the close-up and working on this scene and you’ve got to be prepared, you’ve got to have it available.”

The film is definitely Oscar material, but Cruise just wants you to walk out of the theater with some kind of experience. He hopes that “each audience walks away with an experience from the movie, whether it’s a thrill-ride, or an epic or romance or a thriller, and I would like them to have that feeling they’re going to go see a different world in the same way that I did as a kid. I want them to know that they’re going to go to a time and it is authentic even though the story is fiction. The timeframe in which it takes place and the humanity in the picture is real.”

Next up for Cruise is the Michael Mann-directed action-thriller Collateral . In the film, Jamie Foxx plays a Los Angeles cab driver forced to serve as a chauffeur to a contract killer (Cruise) on a string of hits. Ruffalo stars as a detective on the trail of Cruise’s character. He says the project is actually untitled at the moment and that Mann is “a great guy and he’s a great filmmaker. I’m really having a blast.”

After he finishes that pic, it’s back to the character of Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 3 . He says that they are “still working on the script” for the third film in the franchise. Cruise also talked about the challenges involved in making a M:I movie. “‘Mission’ is always tough to do. That’s the challenge of it and I hope I can [do it] because I like producing those movies. They’re just fun to produce. But if I can’t figure it out, then I won’t be able to figure it out.”

The Last Samurai , which is getting sneak previews this Saturday (check your local listings), opens on December 5.

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Ken Watanabe Defends ‘Last Samurai’ Against White Savior Criticism of Tom Cruise: ‘I Didn’t Think of It Like That’

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Ken Watanabe is having the last word on “The Last Samurai.”

After the 2003 film, inspired by a true story, was criticized for perpetuating the white savior stereotype with Tom Cruise ‘s U.S. Army captain character Nathan Algren in the lead, Watanabe is now reflecting on the film almost two decades later.

“I didn’t think of it like that,” Watanabe told The Guardian . “I just thought we had the opportunity to depict Japan in a way that we were never able to before. So we thought we were making something special.”

Watanabe earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Samurai leader Katsumoto who fights alongside Cruise’s prisoner of war to curb the Westernization of 19th century Japan. “The Last Samurai” is directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, and is still one of Japan’s most successful box office hits to date landing $8.4 million in its opening weekend.

“Before ‘The Last Samurai,’ there was this stereotype of Asian people with glasses, bucked teeth and a camera,” Watanabe continued, seeming to cite Mickey Rooney’s racist performance as Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Related Stories Tom Cruise to Lead Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s New Film for Warner Bros. and Legendary Want to Know Why Actors Behave Badly on Movie Sets? Ed Zwick Explains

The “Tokyo Vice” star added, “It was stupid, but after [‘The Last Samurai’] came out, Hollywood tried to be more authentic when it came to Asian stories.”

Watanabe went on to make history as the fourth man of Japanese heritage to be Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor. “Then I realized it’s only five people every year, in all of Hollywood, that get nominated,” he said. “It was an amazing honor.”

Watanabe’s “Last Samurai” co-star Cruise was given an honorary Palme d’Or during the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, following the premiere of the highly anticipated sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Following “The Last Samurai,” Watanabe portrayed a false Ra’s al Ghul in “Batman Begins” and starred in “Memoirs of a Geisha.” Watanabe teamed up again with director Christopher Nolan for “Inception” and led the musical “The King and I,” solidifying his international marketability stateside.

“I consider myself really lucky to have had all these opportunities,” Watanabe told The Guardian, reflecting on his 30-plus year career.

Up next, Watanabe is paired with writer-director Gareth Edwards for the star-studded “True Love” opposite John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, Ralph Ineson, and Sturgill Simpson. Meanwhile, “Tokyo Vice” is currently streaming on HBO Max.

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The Last Samurai

In 1853 when Matthew Perry (that is Commodore Matthew Perry of the US Navy rather than the actor playing Chandler Bing in Friends) sailed into Edo Harbour to end centuries of Japanese isolation, he began a mutual fascination between America and Japan that has continued to this day - except of course for that blip in the 1940s. These past 30 years young American filmmakers - most recently Jim Jarmusch with Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, the Wachowski Brothers with The Matrix and Quentin Tarantino with Kill Bill - have been more drawn to Asian martial arts movies than to the western, and in fact Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai is very consciously a western pursued in an easterly direction.

The movie opens in San Francisco in the centennial year of 1876, a few weeks after the Indians obliterated Custer's cavalry at Little Big Horn and 23 years after Perry's incursion into Japan. Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a gallant Civil War veteran disgusted by the racist manner in which the US is destroying the culture of the American Indian, accepts a lucrative invitation to teach modern methods of warfare to the Japanese imperial army. In Japan he discovers that his task is to defeat the traditional warlords opposed to the emperor's determination to disarm the samurai and turn Japan into a modern industrial society.

A magnificently staged pitched battle ensues in which Algren's ill-trained troops with their muzzle-loading rifles are routed by a much smaller force of samurai cavalry. Armed with bows and swords, wearing traditional armour and horned helmets, the victors come roaring out of the mist-shrouded forest like warriors in a Kurosawa picture. Algren's life is spared by Katsumoto, most feared of warlords (Ken Wanatabe), for his unflinching courage in the face of death, and during his captivity he is converted to the samurai's sacred code of honour and discipline. He also teaches baseball to the village kids.

This film is in effect a version of those westerns like A Man Called Horse and Dances with Wolves where the hero turns against what he comes to see as the shallow, materialistic civilisation in which he was reared, and embraces a supposedly more primitive but in fact far richer culture. It might have been called 'Sports with Samurai'. It also has, in the relationship between Algren and the formal, inquisitive Katsumoto, some of the well-meaning pieties of The King and I.

Zwick, who did such a good job on Glory, his rousing movie about the first black fighting unit raised in the North during the American War, brings a grand epic style to this somewhat simplistic material. There is a terrific attack by a band of ninjas on Katsumoto's headquarters, and two magnificent battles, the climactic one with conscious echoes of Thermopylae, Agincourt and Balaclava.

As in Glory and Legends of the Fall, Zwick is attracted to the notions of victory in defeat and the romantic purity of self-sacrifice. His film is, however, a trifle earnest and overlong. Tom Cruise is lightweight and rather strained at the centre, unable to match the stature and presence of Wanatabe. At one point he says approvingly of a Japanese general that 'he's a man of small stature who nonetheless commands immense respect'.

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Tom Cruise: 'The Last Samurai'

By Rebecca Leung

February 17, 2004 / 5:13 PM EST / CBS

Tom Cruise is not only the star of "The Last Samurai," he's also a producer.

And with a price tag of more than $100 million, the stakes couldn't be higher.

"I feel totally responsible to make the studio back their money," says Cruise. "I feel responsible to make the best film that I can make, and have the studio do well."

When Anchor Lesley Stahl caught up with Cruise in Los Angeles, he was taking a break from shooting yet another movie. He had been up all night, and was almost giddy with enthusiasm.

At 41, Cruise still seems young. But he's now a veteran that younger actors look up to – for his skills, his work ethic, and his good nature.

And it took all of those things, and more, to make "The Last Samurai," a movie about an American who goes to Japan to fight the Samurai – and then, decides to become one of them.

How hard was it to sell the idea of a movie about 19th century Japan to a big Hollywood studio?

"This has been the story of my life. I walk in and say, 'I wanna make a movie about an African American regiment in 1863.' I wanna walk in and make the movie about friendly fire in the Gulf War, and people give me these dull blank stares," says Zwick.

Among his many credits includes "Glory," the historical epic about the Civil War. But Zwick says that war movies don't get any easier, especially when you've signed up one of the most famous movie stars in the world: "It's as if you've poured rocket fuel on a fire. Everything rises. The enthusiasm, and the budget and it all sort of takes on this great kind of specific gravity."

Cruise kicked into his own high gear, beginning with research – boxes full of books. However, Cruise, a high school dropout who also had a learning disability, didn't always study this way for his roles.

"You'd be surprised how many top businessmen and top artists there are that have problems with reading," says Cruise. "You find different ways, different ways to get along. And it was something that I knew. It's not something that I didn't think was there. I just fought and fought and fought."

But Cruise didn't just read up to get ready for the part. He also endured eight months of strenuous training in Japanese martial arts and sword fighting, so he could do all of his own stunts.

"I thought it was important to actually show the audience that he had done the homework, that it wasn't done with sleight of hand," says Zwick.

"There is something like 70 different points of contact, sword on sword, kicking and body movements," says Cruise. "It starts and everyone has to be at the same speed."

How long did it take to shoot this movie? "We shot on three continents," says Zwick. "We shot for 117 shooting days. That's really about twice the length of a lot of movies."

There was more to get right than just the action sequences. The key moments are driven by silence. For example, the scene between Cruise and the woman he falls in love with is all about restraint.

"You have to earn a scene like that, because you don't know, is the tension in the relationship going to work? Is it too much? Is it too little," says Cruise.

The other essential on-screen chemistry in the movie was between Cruise and actor Ken Watanabe, who plays the Last Samurai.

This is Watanabe's first English-speaking role: "English is very expressive language. But Samurai are not expressive."

"I remember my direction to him at times was, 'Ken, speak English but act in Japanese," says Zwick. "And I think to Tom, I think he became a little more Japanese in his acting as well."

Cruise traveled all over the world to promote "The Last Samurai." At the London premiere, he spent three hours talking to his fans – even the ones calling on cell phones.

But in spite of all that personal commitment, the research, the training, and the money, the movie did not break through with major Academy Award nominations.

"If there was a problem with 'Last Samurai,' it's that it had the misfortune to come out in a year when it wasn't the only game in town," says Mark Harris, who is following the awards race closely for Entertainment Weekly magazine.

"Cold Mountain, Master and Commander, even Lord of The Rings, which is a fantasy, draws from the same vein of military history. There wasn't gonna be room for four of those movies in the best picture race."

The movie, however, did receive some nominations, including Ken Watanabe for Best Supporting Actor – and Best Costume, Art Direction and Sound.

For Zwick and Cruise, there is this consolation. "Samurai" has made more than $109 million in the United States and more than $296 million internationally.

So will the studio make back its money?

"Oh yeah, they'll they're gonna make back and be able to go out and go make some more movies," says Cruise, laughing. "Even with me."

More from CBS News

tom cruise on last samurai

Hiroyuki Sanada Came Inches Away From Ending Tom Cruise's Hollywood Career For Good

  • Tom Cruise has been doing his own dangerous stunts since the 1980s, putting his life at risk on set many times.
  • He almost lost his life while filming The Last Samurai and Top Gun due to stunt mishaps, but they made it to the big screen.
  • Despite nearing retirement age, Cruise plans to keep pushing the limit in action films, aspiring to keep acting like Harrison Ford.

Ever since he got his big break in the romantic comedy Risky Busines s back in the early 1980s, Tom Cruise has become one of Hollywood’s biggest action movie stars. Since then, the actor has starred in major box office hits such as Top Gun, The Mummy, and the Mission: Impossible film series, which is one of the most successful and longest-running action film franchises of all time.

Over the years, Tom Cruise has proven that he doesn’t only have the looks to play the lead in action movies, but also the abilities necessary to do so. Even today, at age 61, Cruise still prides himself on doing his own stunts for action films. While this sets Cruise apart from many other movie stars, it’s a huge risk.

After all, the actor has come close to losing his life on set many times, including when he was filming The Last Samurai alongside Hiroyuki Sanada.

Brad Pitt Had This To Say About Tom Cruise's Penchant For Dangerous Stunts

Hiroyuki sanada almost decapitated tom cruise while filming the last samurai.

In 2003, Tom Cruise starred in the epic period action drama film The Last Samurai alongside Japanese martial arts star Hiroyuki Sananda. Even though the actor underwent eight months of intense training for this film, things went wrong while filming one of the most important scenes for the movie.

“One day we were shooting, I was on a mechanical horse and Hiro (Sanada) was on one too,” Cruise recalled of the dangerous incident. “He was approaching me and then suddenly his horse hit me and his sword was right here,” he explained, pointing about an inch from his neck. “Luckily Hiro is trained in martial arts. I trust him.”

If the prop had been a little closer, Cruise could’ve been fatally injured, putting both his career and his life at huge risk.

How Tom Cruise's Childhood Prepared Him For His Mission Impossible Stunts

Of course, Cruise wasn’t the only one shaken by this incident. For a moment, Sanada greatly feared for Cruise’s life while filming this scene.

"I just managed to stop my sword an inch from his neck. “It was so hard. I was drenched in sweat! My God! But Tom never blinked! It was the biggest moment, the most dangerous moment," Sanada told Yahoo.

Tom Cruise Risked His Life While Filming Top Gun

Given his penchant for doing his own stunts, it’s no surprise that Tom Cruise has come close to losing his life on set on more than one occasion. While filming one of his craziest and most dangerous stunts for Top Gun , Cruise nearly died .

“Cruise came as close to dying as anybody on a set I’ve ever seen," his costar Barry Tubb told The New York Post, recounting how Cruise's parachute began filling with water when filming the scene where Maverick waits for rescue in the ocean, holding Goose's body.

“They were refilling the camera or something, and luckily one of the frogmen in the chopper saw his chute ballooning out,” Tubb explained. “He jumped in and cut Cruise loose right before he sank. They would have never found him. He would have been at the bottom of the ocean.” Luckily, no one was hurt while filming this scene.

Tom Cruise Might Be Great At Stunts, But He Didn't Read The Room Well With Graham Norton

When he came back to film Top Gun: Maverick , his co-stars couldn’t believe Cruise was going to do his own stunts at age 60 . But the actor showed them he still has what it takes to be an action lead.

Funnily enough, Cruise didn’t have any accidents while filming Top Gun: Maverick , but one of his co-stars did. Despite undergoing intense training, Miles Teller feared for his life while filming an intense G-force scene on set.

"I definitely had a moment where I thought I was going to die," Teller revealed. "There was a sequence where we were heading straight towards the ground and you do what’s called a max G pull-up. You’re heading down and at the last second you yank up, and it’s really tough for the pilot. It’s something they train in all the time, but it was the first time we’d done a maneuver like that and I completely stopped acting. I looked at the ground, and thought this wasn’t going to end well for me."

Tom Cruise Also Had Near-Death Experiences While Filming The Mission: Impossible Movies

Tom Cruise has cheated death many times on the set of the Mission: Impossible films. Cruise nearly died filming a scene where his character rides a motorcycle off a cliff, jumps of the vehicle, and then opens his parachute for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

Due to a prop issue, the actor’s parachute almost didn’t open. "You can see when I opened it, I was in the wrong position and I opened the parachute, and the parachute turned into the side of the mountain,” Cruise said, explaining that, for a moment, he knew was "very close" to hitting the mountain. Of course, this is one of his most dangerous stunts to date .

Despite how risky it is to film the Mission: Impossible movies, Cruise has no plans to retire. In fact, the actor revealed that he wants to keep making action movies well into his 80s . “Harrison Ford is a legend, I hope to be still going, I’ve got 20 years to catch up with him,” Cruise told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I hope to keep making Mission: Impossible films until I’m his age.”

Hiroyuki Sanada Came Inches Away From Ending Tom Cruise's Hollywood Career For Good

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Tom cruise-wbd deal can’t hurt his $8 billion relationship with paramount.

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When word broke in January that Tom Cruise signed a deal to develop original and franchise pictures with Warner Bros. Discovery, including having an office for the actor’s Cruise/Wagner Productions company on the WBD lot, many ask if it’s a sign all isn’t well between Cruise and frequent collaborator Paramount Pictures. But while it's a terrific "get" for Warner’s Motion Picture Group co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, it can’t hurt the Cruise’s blockbuster relationship with Paramount.

Tom Cruise stars in "Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning - Part One"

The deal with Warner is not even exclusive, nor is it a first-look situation prohibiting Cruise from shopping projects to other studios first. I suspect it’s in fact a preparation for a set of specific projects being considered and/or developed, including some Cruise is bringing to the studio to collaborate on, and a few franchises the studio wants Cruise to appear in (and I’ve a suspicion laced with hope that it might eventually involve conversations with James Gunn and Peter Safran over at DC Studios).

Warner and Cruise will no doubt make some big projects together and enjoy lots of success, if the star-producer’s history of picking winning projects and pairing with the right people is any guide. Edge of Tomorrow , The Last Samurai , and Interview With the Vampire , are some of the films Cruise made in some collaboration with Warner that were critical and/or financial successes, combining for $1 billion in box office.

However, understanding that deal in the context of Cruise’s ongoing relationship with Paramount requires understanding at the math.

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning grossed $567.5 million around the world in 2023. After the final Mission: Impossible 8 movie for Cruise releasing in 2025 and upcoming Top Gun 3 release expected for 2026, across every decade for nearly 40 years, Tom Cruise will have been making Paramount an average of $772 million per film in two tentpole franchises totaling $8-8.5 billion.

Few stars can boast similarly successful longterm relationships with a studio and franchises, and this is without discussing the massive merchandising revenue streams behind both franchises, which adds billions more in revenue streams.

Then consider the sales and licensing for TV and streaming worldwide, the soundtracks and shirts, the buttons and collectables, and the rest of the merchandise. We’re talking about money-printing machines, as franchises go.

So at first glance, it might seem surprising Cruise is willing to step outside of that relationship. I saw reactions to the title change for this year’s Mission: Impossible 8 , formerly Dead Reckoning Part 2 , asking if this reflects continued debate about the marketing of the previous film and how to proceed, with an implication the title change and deal with WBD might be tied to those rumors of Cruise being displeased by the studio’s handling of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1’s release.

But I don’t believe the situation around the promotion and final box office for Dead Reckoning is as big of a deal as some make it out to be, nor are the implications of Cruise’s deal with WBD.

For what it’s worth, I suspect the title change of the sequel from its original Dead Reckoning Part 2 to simply Mission: Impossible 8 may be a temporary place-holding palate cleanser of sorts, to distance it from the impression of the “two-part story” pitch accompanying the first film.

Add a big, new marketing promotion and tie-in merchandising deals and a dynamic new title reflecting the fact it’s (supposedly, but questionably) Cruise’s final performance as Ethan Hunt, and I think audiences will be ready to turn out in numbers closer to what Cruise and Paramount PARA hoped for last time around.

The Problem

The problems faced by Dead Reckoning Part 1 started with the fact 2023 was just a rough reset year for audiences and studios all around. It was the first year we returned to the box office in a supposed “end of the pandemic/return to normal” emergence, but everyone was still making up their minds about how much they were willing to emerge. Audiences had completely changed how they watch movies and TV, and were reorienting themselves toward more home viewing as they got used to it and realized they didn’t miss theaters much.

But the biggest factor working against Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning was its release date. It hit theaters the weekend of July 14th, 2023. And that, unfortunately, turned out to be the weekend before the historic arrival of Barbie and Oppenheimer to take complete control of the box office and combine for a grand total of nearly $2.5 billion as they played through the end of summer, all of autumn, and into winter.

Indeed, Barbie didn’t leave theaters until January of 2024, and Oppenheimer remains in theaters to this day, actually seeing an increase in screens and box office receipts in the aftermath of it’s Oscar wins, including Best Picture , Best Director , Best Actor , and Best Supporting Actor .

So it’s understandable that Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning suffered the unfortunate fate of going up against the two biggest films of the year, in a year that audiences rejected the majority of tentpole and franchise releases.

However, after all films saw large declines the weekend Barbie and Oppenheimer debuted, the Mission: Impossible sequel declined a more blockbuster-typical 64%. Not a big hold, but avoiding a sizable drop in the face of overwhelming competition.

The second weekend of the so-called “Barbenheimer” phenomenon is where things really get interesting, though. Dead Reckoning only suffered a 45% drop its third North American weekend against Barbie and Oppenheimer (which both once again dominated with massive numbers). And then, on its fourth weekend, Dead Reckoning only dropped about 38%. And then 30%.

Again, that’s just domestically. Internationally, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning performed even stronger, and those legs carried it to nearly $400 million in foreign receipts alone.

The Potential

Which is all to say, what might Dead Reckoning have grossed if it wasn’t up against two record-setting blockbusters that dominated the box office for half the year during a pandemic faux-recovery year?

Just a 10% rise internationally would’ve put Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning over the $600 million threshold, and that instantly means the entire M:I franchise has a majority of films that grossed more than $600 million. Add in a 10% domestic rise as well, and we’re talking about $620+ million and a per-film average of $600 million per film, up from the current actual average of $592 million.

That might not sound like much in relative terms, but it means a lot and the optics matter. It’s also important for the complicated “Hollywood math” used to determine various thresholds for backend points and other participation.

I’m betting that, with such sustained audience attendance and final box office of $567 million for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning in spite of the obstacles in its path in the markeplace, Mission: Impossible 8 will surely see more than just a 10% increase over Dead Reckoning’s cume.

At a 20% rise compared to Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning’s performance, the next sequel could finish somewhere around $680 million, and with enough momentum and good word of mouth it could easily top $700 million. Or more, in fact, with that big promotional blitz about it (again, so they say) being Tom Cruise’s final mission against his most dangerous foe.

This brings us back to the original point about how lucrative Mission: Impossible movies are for Paramount and Cruise. The same is true, of course, for Top Gun films as well.

The first Top Gun flew into theaters on a wave of frenzied audience anticipation and scored top grades from critics and viewers, as well as $357 million in worldwide box office. That’s equivalent to $1 billion in today’s dollars, for the inflation-adjusted conscious, which is particularly relevant for these franchises since the film lacked the massive international marketplace and huge premium screens like IMAX and Dolby Cinema with higher ticket prices, both of which drive the biggest annual blockbusters consistently toward $1 billion.

It’s no surprise, then, that Cruise’s continued star power could carry Top Gun: Maverick to greater heights and a $1.49 billion final global gross. At $1.8 billion combined, the two films set the stage for the upcoming third chapter to carry the franchise past the $3 billion line and possibly even toward $3.5 billion if it captures the public’s imaginations and hearts the way Maverick did.

Cruise is a powerhouse global star, one of the few left in Hollywood and perhaps the only one capable of delivering this sort of consistent box office and merchandising success across a span of almost 40 years. He’ll prove that when Mission: Impossible 8 arrives — maybe with a new title — May 23rd this summer. And he’ll prove it again with Top Gun 3 , although we’re still waiting on the arrival time for that one.

But rest assured, it will come. Just as eventual Mission: Impossible sequels will come, probably with Cruise involved or returning after a brief hiatus. There’s an $8 billion partnership to maintain, and Warner Bros. Discovering won’t get in the way of that.

Mark Hughes

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Tom Cruise has been permanently banned from ever buying a Bugatti

Tom Cruise has been permanently banned from ever buying a Bugatti

Tom cruise was banned from ever purchasing a bugatti again after a 2006 incident with his bugatti veyron..

Dylan Murray

It is not a hot take to say that with fame and wealth comes luxury cars.

It’s quite rare to see a top YouTuber , pro athlete, or A-List movie star without a beautiful, oftentimes costly, vehicle that further emphasizes their status in the hierarchy of fame.

Whether it’s a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, or a Rolls-Royce, getting behind the wheel of an extravagant car is one of the biggest benefits of living the lifestyle the rich and the famous.

However, one person you won’t see driving an old favorite car of his is Tom Cruise , who is permanently banned from purchasing a Bugatti, one of the top car brands in the world .

The coveted Bugatti.

The French company, known for having some of the fastest cars on earth, is also known to have strict rules and regulations for its clientele; Bugatti owners not only need to spend $21,000 on yearly maintenance but also must change their tires every 10,000 miles driven.

While this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the car itself, which ranges anywhere from 3 million to 12.5 million dollars ( per MotorTrend ), these added expenditures can make Bugatti’s a hassle to upkeep.

However, none of these technical requirements are the reason that Cruise was banned from ever purchasing a new Bugatti. Instead, the one-time star of The Last Samurai was banned for a minor flub back in 2006, when he struggled to open the passenger side door of his Bugatti Veyron at the premiere of Mission Impossible 3 .

A bugatti is sadly one car you won't see Cruise driving anytime soon.

That’s right, a slightly awkward moment where he attempted to open a seemingly locked car door nearly 20 years ago resulted in Cruise being banned from purchasing a Bugatti ever since.

While Katie Holmes, Cruise’s wife and passenger on that fateful day in 2006, was soon strutting alongside him on the red carpet, the Jack Reacher lead’s moments of struggle were deemed too embarrassing for the supercar’s brand to ever allow it to happen again.

Don’t feel too bad for Cruise, however, because he’s in good company. For one reason or another, Floyd 'Money' Mayweather, Flo Rida, Simon Cowell, and 2009 Formula One World Champion Jenson Button have also been indefinitely banned from purchasing a Bugatti.

Furthermore, while a new Bugatti won’t be joining Cruise’s garage anytime soon, he has made sure to keep it full with other luxury cars, such as BMWs, Chevrolets, Mustangs, and his infamous Bugatti Veyron, over the years.

Topics:  US News , Celebrity , Film and TV , Tom Cruise , Cars

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Tom Cruise Flashes His Abs While Scaling the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles

Tom Cruise was seen hanging from the beams of Los Angeles' famous Hollywood sign while accompanied by a film crew on Saturday

NATO / BACKGRID

Tom Cruise appears to have found a new iconic location to pull off his famous stuntwork.

On Saturday, Cruise, 61, was seen with a film crew at the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills as the Top Gun: Maverick star scaled the famed landmark.

The actor wore an all-black t-shirt, pants and shoes for the shoot and at one point flashed his abs from underneath his shirt. Largely thanks to his long-running Mission: Impossible series, Cruise has become synonymous with the dangerous stunts seen in the action-packed films.

A representative for Cruise did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment Monday. It's unclear what Cruise was filming on Saturday.

Cruise last appeared onscreen in Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning , which brought back his character Ethan Hunt for a seventh entry in the long-running Mission: Impossible series. The movie made $172 million at the domestic box office and also received two nominations at the recent 96th Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

A title for the eighth film in the series has not yet been announced.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

Cruise also has several other projects in development. In February, PEOPLE confirmed that he will star in the next movie from filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu ( The Revenant, Birdman ), and The Hollywood Reporter reported in January that Top Gun 3 is in development at Paramount, with Maverick filmmaker Joseph Kosinski in talks to direct a follow-up to 2022's highest-grossing movie.

The actor has also been planning to film a movie in outer space for a number of years now as part of a project first announced by NASA back  in 2020. Doug Liman, the filmmaker with whom Cruise made 2014's  Edge of Tomorrow  and 2017's  American Made , is directing that movie . Universal Pictures executive Donna Langley shared in a 2022 BBC news interview that Cruise plans to become the " first civilian to do a space walk outside of the [International] Space Station " as part of the untitled film.

“We’ve been working on it diligently,” Cruise told Variety in July 2023, when asked for an update on the project. “We’ll see where we go.”

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  1. The Last Samurai (2003)

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COMMENTS

  1. The Last Samurai (2003)

    The Last Samurai: Directed by Edward Zwick. With Ken Watanabe, Tom Cruise, William Atherton, Chad Lindberg. Nathan Algren, a US army veteran, is hired by the Japanese emperor to train his army in the modern warfare techniques. Nathan finds himself trapped in a struggle between two eras and two worlds.

  2. The Last Samurai

    The Last Samurai is a 2003 epic period action drama film directed and produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz from a story devised by Logan. The film stars Ken Watanabe in the title role, with Tom Cruise, who also produced, as a soldier-turned-samurai who befriends him, and Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Hiroyuki Sanada ...

  3. Tom Cruise Talks About "The Last Samurai"

    In order to prepare for the role of Captain Nathan Algren in The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise endured months of strenuous physical training while at the same time trying to get inside his character. Cruise's character Algren is a decorated veteran of the Civil War who's lost his soul. Hired by the Emperor of Japan to train Japan's first modern army ...

  4. The Last Samurai

    Tom Cruise stars in this sweeping epic set in Japan during the 1870s as Captain Nathan Algren, a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of ...

  5. "This Is How He Wins": Tom Cruise's Subtle Acting Elevates Last Samurai

    The Last Samurai was a departure from typical Tom Cruise movies up until that point. At the time, the actor was (and still is) best known for his association with action-packed franchises like Mission: Impossible and sci-fi films like Minority Report and Vanilla Sky.However, The Last Samurai represented a slight detour in Cruise's career as he took on a more dramatic role in an epic historical ...

  6. Was The Last Samurai Tom Cruise's last great movie?

    Samurai man: Tom Cruise in his 2003 historical epic 'The Last Samurai'. (Warner Bros) A sk Steven Spielberg who his favourite superhero is and he'll probably say Tom Cruise. Last year, the ...

  7. The Last Samurai movie review (2003)

    Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe co-star, as a shabby Civil War veteran and a proud samurai warrior. Cruise plays Nathan Algren, a war hero who now drifts and drinks too much, with no purpose in life. He's hired by Americans who are supplying mercenaries to train an army for the Japanese emperor, who wants to move his country into the modern world ...

  8. 20 Years Ago, Tom Cruise Made a Controversial War Epic

    Discussions of The Last Samurai often focus on the obvious incongruity of a movie where Tom Cruise dons samurai armor to become the steward of traditional Japanese culture. The picture of Cruise ...

  9. The Last Samurai

    Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is an American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first army in the art of modern warfare. As the government attempts to ...

  10. The Last Samurai (2003)

    Set in Japan during the 1870s, this movie tells the story of Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first Army in the art of modern warfare. The Imperial Omura (Masato Harada) cabinet attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation ...

  11. 'The Last Samurai' Interview

    http://www.hollywood.com'The Last Samurai' InterviewRachel Platt interviews Edward Zwick, Tony Goldwyn, Tom Cruise, and Ken Watanabe.http://www.hollywood.com...

  12. Is The Last Samurai Real At All? True Story Explained

    The Last Samurai true story adds a lot of context to the Tom Cruise period drama. The movie chronicles a real-life Japanese rebellion from the 19th century but fictionalizes several historical events and people. The Edward Zwick drama received four Oscar nominations upon its 2003 release and has sparked debates over the years about its subject ...

  13. The True Story Behind 'The Last Samurai'

    What Happens in 'The Last Samurai'? The depiction of the Samurai is nothing new in TV and film. This Edward Zwick-directed movie starred Tom Cruise as an American military officer who was hired by ...

  14. 'Last Samurai': Ed Zwick on Tom Cruise's Intimidating Energy

    The Last Samurai. director Ed Zwick on the "joyous, challenging, and exhausting" experience of working with Tom Cruise. For years, Edward Zwick was primarily known as a television guy. He had ...

  15. Tom Cruise Interview

    Interview with Tom Cruise on The Last Samurai, stunts, and his character. The interview took place at the December 2003 premiere in Hollywood, Ca.-Check out ...

  16. Watch The Last Samurai (2003)

    The Last Samurai (2003) AMC Presents: After he is captured in battle an American military advisor embraces the samurai culture he was hired to destroy. ... Marshall Herskovitz, Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner, Scott Kroopf, Tom Engelman Starring Tom Cruise, Timothy Spall, Ken Watanabe Studio Warner Bros. Pictures. Other formats. DVD from $4.99. Multi ...

  17. Tom Cruise Opened Up About Missing His Son on 'Last Samurai' Set

    Tom Cruise, on the set of 'The Last Samurai,' opened up to director Ed Zwick about his then-8-year-old son Connor in order to complete an emotional scene for the 2003 film, Zwick wrote in his new ...

  18. Interviews: Tom Cruise on The Last Samurai

    Tom Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren in the amazing new epic film, The Last Samurai, from director Edward Zwick. In the Warner Bros. feature, Algren is hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the ...

  19. Jules Brunet And The True Story Behind 'The Last Samurai'

    Brunet's daring, adventurous actions in Japan were one of the main inspirations for the 2003 film The Last Samurai. In this film, Tom Cruise plays American Army officer Nathan Algren, who arrives in Japan to help train Meiji government troops in modern weaponry but becomes embroiled in a war between the samurai and the Emperor's modern forces.

  20. Ken Watanabe: Tom Cruise Isn't White Savior in 'The Last Samurai'

    Ken Watanabe is having the last word on "The Last Samurai.". After the 2003 film, inspired by a true story, was criticized for perpetuating the white savior stereotype with Tom Cruise's U.S ...

  21. The Last Samurai

    The movie opens in San Francisco in the centennial year of 1876, a few weeks after the Indians obliterated Custer's cavalry at Little Big Horn and 23 years after Perry's incursion into Japan ...

  22. Tom Cruise: 'The Last Samurai'

    Tom Cruise is not only the star of "The Last Samurai," he's also a producer. And with a price tag of more than $100 million, the stakes couldn't be higher. "I feel totally responsible to make the ...

  23. Watch The Last Samurai

    The Last Samurai. 2003 | Maturity Rating: 16+ | 2h 34m | Action. An American war veteran hired to teach modern military tactics in 1870s Japan becomes caught up in the conflict between the emperor and the samurai. Starring: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Timothy Spall.

  24. Hiroyuki Sanada Came Inches Away From Ending Tom Cruise's ...

    Tom Cruise has been doing his own dangerous stunts since the 1980s, putting his life at risk on set many times. He almost lost his life while filming The Last Samurai and Top Gun due to stunt ...

  25. Tom Cruise-WBD Deal Can't Hurt His $8 Billion Relationship ...

    Edge of Tomorrow, The Last Samurai, ... Tom Cruise will have been making Paramount an average of $772 million per film in two tentpole franchises totaling $8-8.5 billion. ...

  26. Tom Cruise has been permanently banned from ever buying a Bugatti

    However, none of these technical requirements are the reason that Cruise was banned from ever purchasing a new Bugatti. Instead, the one-time star of The Last Samurai was banned for a minor flub back in 2006, when he struggled to open the passenger side door of his Bugatti Veyron at the premiere of Mission Impossible 3.

  27. Tom Cruise Seen Performing Stunt at Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles

    Tom Cruise Once Opened Up About Missing His Son Connor, Then 8, on Last Samurai Set, Recalls Director Tom Cruise in 2023's Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning. Christian Black/Paramount Pictures

  28. During the production of "The Last Samurai" in Taipei, Taiwan, Tom

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