A good, almost great, film. The opening, with Cruise’s Nathan Algren as an alcoholic soldier trotted out on stage to sell Winchester rifles with tales of derring-do (actually, slaughtering villages of Amerigooks), is superb; and I greatly enjoyed the middle section, with Algren captured and slowly civilized by the samurai. The last section, the giant battle and closing, falls flat for me – it’s technically very well done but a little unimaginative, predictable.

All of the acting is splendid. Ken Watanabe is particularly good, bearing a Chow Yun-Fat esque charisma and bald head and lengthy sword.

The film was successful, interesting as it romanticises tradition and masculinity and the warrior code – all the things despised and reviled by the chaimstream media and Hollywood and our rulers. I especially enjoyed the respect for death, the sense that a good death makes for a good life.