Watched "The Last Samurai" last night. Good film, not great. Made me come to a conclusion though, Edward Zwick just can't direct.

He get's the greatest stories to film ("Glory", "Legends of the Fall") but he lacks finding and holding onto the emotion within the film. Depending too much on the actors to hold the audience for him. BUT ACTORS NEED DIRECTION YOU FOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

He's a one-hit wonder. "Glory" was great, but that's because it had a great ensemble cast that worked great off one another. "Legends of the Fall" needed direction; should have gotten wolfgang peterson or clint eastwood to direct that.

What prevented "The Last Samurai" from being great was Zwick's attempt at directing battle scenes of such grand scale. This has become a lost art of directing. Brilliant directors of old, like Akira Kurosawa ("seven samurai", "ran") and Orsen Welles ("the chimes of midnight") new how to direct a cast of a thousand and more in battle sequences. Zwick fails.

He films at too many angles, there's no flow. He jumps from camera to camera, not allowing us to soak it in. And the moments where he does slow down the pace and focus on the emotion of the event, it's way too melodramatic. Like when tom cruise watches one of his friends die in battle, zwick drags on too long with it. Cruise could have easily been slaughtered.

He fails to show us the important meaning of the battle. It's like he had all these clips of people dying from arrows and spears and swords and guns and what not; and all he did was throw them on the cutting room floor, mix it up and then grab a handful and randomly put it together.

To film an epic battle, you must follow one simple rule: Make the story support and lead into the battle. Not vice-versa. Zwick can't do this anymore. Makes "Glory" appear to have been a fluke.

Very few people can direct grand battles these days, the great ones have passed on. Now we can rely on only Ridley Scott ("gladiator") Martin Scorsese ("gangs of new york") and mel gibson ("braveheart") peter jackson, george lucas and steven spielberg. Ironically, all these men devote their techniques to be derived from the grandmaster of them all, Akira Kurosawa.

But the directing isn't the only thing that could have been improved. The writing needed help too. The last ten minutes of the movie came out of nowhere and the melodramatic tones it carried in the dialogue, killed the strong emotion I felt when I thought the movie should have ended (at the end of the battle).

Now let us look at the innaccuracies of the film shall we. Now I do understand that this is a fictional tale, but it does fall into the same time frame where there were such revolts taking place in Japan between the Samurai ways and western technology. And the character of Katsumoto does bare a strong resemblence to Saigo Takamori (one of the last TRUE samurai's) who actually battled the modern troops and caused them to flee, followed by him committing seppuku (ritual suicide) in front of the emperor at that time. But not letting the emperor cut off his head (which was a disgrace to the emperor). But here is where the inaccuracies fall...

now i know i'm probably nitpicking here but, the proper way to form seppuku (which happens a few times in this film) is to stab yourself in the liver and drag your dagger across your abdomen, severing all organs in it's path. Seppuku in this film is only done by stabbing yourself in the stomach. Sure it will kill you, but this way would be slow and painful.

secondly, there is a fight sequence with ninjas (yes there are ninjas in the film). the problem with this scene is that the ninjas seemed burly and grunted and screamed with deep voices. NINJAS WERE WOMEN! historically, there were never any male ninjas, they were too heavy and their footsteps would be heard (like they are in the film!)

If a film ever comes out based on the 47 Ronin (it's a long story, i'll tell you some other time). please don't get edward zwick to direct it. for if he does, i'll personally start a petition to prevent him from doing so.

And finally, I don't think Tom Cruise was the right pick for the film. Don't get me wrong, he did a good job with the film. But i don't think he's meant to act in period films. he should just stick to contemporary. i wonder how this film would have turned out if it were another actor, like russel crowe, ed norton, johnny depp, brad pitt, or bruce willis.

"The Last Samurai" had so much potential to be one of the greatest films of all time. But it takes skill to combine a conflict of "man vs. self" and throw it into a movie with large scale battles. films like this should be meticulously planned for years before the filming actually gets underway. "The Last Samurai" seems a bit rushed.

But don't get me wrong, "The Last Samurai" will still be a contender at the Oscars (which I boycott). But my favourite films of the year so far are still "Narc" and "Mystic River."