From the opening voiceover and title to the final scene, The Last Samurai is an historical disaster. I expected it to be bad, based on early reviews (e.g. Paul Dunscomb's social critique and Tom Conlan on samurai mythology and discussions on H-Japan). This isn't surprising, of course: popular representations of historical circumstances are often badly done. But this is distinctively and truly awful. There was real drama and adventure in late nineteenth century Japan that could have been even more powerful, but instead we get a pastiche of Dances With Wolves , Karate Kid , Kagemusha and Shogun .