DIRECTED BY Edward Zwick
STARRING Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada, Timothy Spall
Opens January 9, Cert 15, 154 mins
Very loosely based on the development of trade links between the US and Japan in the 1870s, signalling the end of Shogunate rule and the beginning of Japan's Meiji Restoration era, The Last Samurai details the exploits of fictional cavalry hero Captain Nathan Algren (Cruise). Dispirited by the violence he's inflicted on the Indian nation, Algren accepts a lucrative assignment to train Japanese riflemen.