Oh yeah, it’s absolutely a very interesting period in Japanese history and if Cruise’s character was used as a symbol of the fear of westernization of Japan post Meiji Restoration, that would be cool.

But he was just there as a big name for box office draw, and probably as an excuse to ditch a lot of subtitles. If I’m inclined to be ungenerous, I have a few other suspicions as well.

It’s kind of like Kundun vs. Seven Years in Tibet. But at least with the latter, it was based on a book written by the real life traveler.