Before seeing it, I joked that The Last Samurai looks like it could be called Dances with Samurai. The basic premise works, with a WASPy American set to tame the "savages" in the late 19th century, only to end up finding peace among them.

They're alike in a more important way, too. Both Last Samurai and Dances with Wolves are fine movies, and the former may be able to reproduce the Oscar success that the latter received.

For those like me, it's for fine acting, sincere look at the customs of Japan and the great battle scenes. For the Hollywood liberal, they'll vote for it simply because they love it when white America is shown how guilty they should feel for supposedly causing all wrongs in the world, when other cultures like the samurai are clearly superior. I don't see that, but the kooks who hoot and holler at events like the "Hate Bush" rally in L.A. this week surely do.

Tom Cruise is surely, for your consideration, in the running for the Best Actor nod when the Oscars come around. A harsh hero, he's full of angst as an American soldier quelling rebellions by the South and the Indians out West, then asked by the Japanese to put down the Samurai rebellion.

Even as his Captain Nathan Algren drinks to forget what he did on the battlefields, he is one of the finest soldiers at his task. Cruise puts out one of his finest performances, and the most conflicted and emotional since Born on the Fourth of July.

Warrior poet Katsumoto is played by the more American sounding Ken Watanabe, except that his real name is Kensaku and he's done only Japanese films. In fact, except for the obvious Western actors, all of the actors and actresses are Japanese or of Asian ancestry, unlike the olden days when a couple of Australian blokes could be playing Indian. Props to the filmmakers for using that big budget to keep it real. I fully expect Watanabe to receive a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work here.

For example, I was pretty sure I'd seen the sensual love interest in the movie, Koyuki, but nothing in her IMDB.com listing was familiar, all of it being across the Pacific. No, this is not one of those moments of, "Gosh, Jeff, I guess all Japs must look the same to you, eh?" This is where I'll place my Subtitle Warning, too, since not surprisingly, very few "Orientals" in 1876 Japan speak English.

Katsumoto is the last samurai, not Cruise, just as Daniel Day-Lewis was not the last of the Mohicans. He's just the closest to the situation to carry on the traditions and stories of the dying order. Based on a composite of samurais and the true story of a samurai uprising in the late 1880s, Katsumoto is the protagonist here, worthy of much more esteem than Cruise deserves.

Director Edward Zwick hasn't helmed a film in five years (The Siege), but has a fine history of military films such as Glory and Courage Under Fire, plus Legends of the Fall and even About Last Night (one of these movies is not like the other ... ). The Last Samurai was surely a labor of love for Zwick, lest he use the scissors on this long (2 � hours) film.

The action is there, but the center of the movie is its heart and soul during which Cruise's transformation from inebriated soldier to honorable warrior takes place. This is also when we get the crux of the picture as well, to one less about fighting and more about character, courage and justice.

We�re most fortunate to have two solid historical dramas released in a span of a month in Master and Commander and Last Samurai, both taking you to a different time and place, both worth exploring and understanding. It makes you want to know more, which may be one of the best compliments a film like this can receive.

The Japanese, like those of us in the South, have a penchant for not saying what they're thinking, deferring to good manners instead, and leaving negative thoughts for later. It leaves a reservoir of feeling underneath, overflowing with 1,000 years of tradition facing an onrush of modernity in a very good film that is The Last Samurai.