Cruise puts the bush league in bushido

Just got out of a sneak preview of “The Last Samurai,” Tom Cruise’s new film about a Civil War and 7th Cavalry veteran (Tom Cruise) who takes a job teaching military tactics to the army of the emperor of Japan. Through a series of circumstances, he learns the error of his ways. Some people applauded.

OK, I guess I can understand that. If you like overblown, overly long, overly bloody, clichéd story lines that are as predictable as they are absurd, then sure, go ahead and applaud. But aside from the fact that the film has only a slight similarity to real history, and that Cruise’s character ends up learning both to speak Japanese and to wield a samurai sword as well as Toshiro Mifune (achieving both in about seven and a half minutes), the real problem with “The Last Samurai” is the fact that it wasn’t directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Kurosawa, director of such great films as “Ran,” “Rashomon,” “Throne of Blood” and “The Seven Samurai” was known to borrow his story lines from Shakespeare. Zwick, on the other hand, likes to depend on his own imagination. In fact, Zwick says in the film’s production notes, he first saw “The Seven Samurai” when he was 17. “(A)nd since then I’ve seen it more times than I can remember,” he says. “In that single film there is everything a director needs to learn about storytelling, about the development of character, about shooting action , about dramatizing a theme.”

No doubt. Kurosawa was one of the greatest film directors the world has seen. Problem is, someone was sleeping in his class.