The History of Imperial College London, 1907-2007: Higher Education and Research in Science, Technology and Medicine
Book
This is the first major history of Imperial College London. The book tells the story of a new type...
The Sins of the Father
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Book
New York, 1939. Tom Bradshaw is arrested for first degree murder. He stands accused of killing his...
Lingua Franca
Book
'William Thacker is a name you will hear a lot more often.' -- Matt Haig, author 'Envisage Brian...
When the Floods Came
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In a world prone to violent flooding, Britain, ravaged 20 years earlier by a deadly virus, has been...
On the Wings of Faith
Book
Rabbi Eli Fishman began writing about his experiences in the Shoah over sixty years ago, soon after...
The Dinner (2017)
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Movie
A riveting story filled with many shocking twists and turns, THE DINNER is a chilling parable about...
Creepy California: Strange and Gothic Tales from the Golden State
Book
Beneath California's scenic landscape lies a strange and dark side, full of spine-tingling tales and...
David McK (3649 KP) rated The Last Samurai (2003) in Movies
Feb 6, 2021
And this.
Which is a strong contender for one of the best of those films.
The film stars Tom Cruise (who, for once, is not playing Tom Cruise) and Ken Wattanabe, with the former a world weary US Civil War veteran (suffering from PTSD?) who is hired to train the modernising Japanese army, and the latter a Samurai leader who thinks Japan is losing its identity; moving too fast into the future.
Captured by that Samurai leader following an early battle, Algren (Cruise's character) soon finds himself beginning to wonder is he fighting in the right side...
Yes, the plot is somewhat akin to 'Dances with Wolves' (or even 'Avatar'), and I've heard the charge of the film being a White Saviour story - a charge, I have to say, that I do NOT find any merit in: indeed, I would argue the opposite (that Cruise's character is saved rather than the one doing the saving) is more true.