From the trailers, this film looked like “Dances with Wolves in Japan”. The score by Hans Zimmer, which I had been listening to for a few weeks now, has been growing on me, and I was eager to hear it in the context of the film. The screening started a little late (no surprise), and I hadn’t figured on the film being 2.5 hours long. Whoops.
Overall, the film was pretty good – not “great” – and the general plot was rather formulaic. I thought the music was excellent in the film (definitely Oscar worthy), and ranks (IMHO) as one of Zimmer’s best in years. The action scenes were good, too – and there’s a ninja vs. samurai sequence that was very cool. 🙂 Top it off with some solid acting (yeah, Tom Cruise can act!) and it makes for a rather solid film. Definitely worth checking out.