Ken Watanabe's fierce, brilliant portrayal of "Katsumoto" took my breath away!

Characterization was this film's strongest point--the many verbal parries and silent communications between these very real characters made me feel awe, sadness, smirking amusement, loss, and heartbreak. All by itself, that would be a terrific acomplishment and my review would be written and done with.

But I really didn't know anything about this "Ken Watanabe" guy, did I? Not that he's actually rather easy-going...and not that in real life he looks more like a huggable chipmunk than a slashing Samurai!

To be sure, this is silly, but I actually got so obsessed by this that I was downloading pictures of Ken as Katsumoto to my desktop just so I could switch back-and-forth between each picture and a video interview I found online. I just could NOT rectify the guy in the video with this vitallically fierce character, especially when at the movies it seems "Katsumoto" might get in your face instead of Nathan's (Tom Cruise).

Or, as one reviewer puts it, "With a rare blend of fire and control, he all but jumps off the screen every time he appears." My thoughts exactly!

Yesiree, pretty amazing stuff this Watanabe-san is, hmmm? Oh, but wait, that's nothing yet...there's a reason I'm calling him Watanabe-san...he is 100% Japanese, has always lived in Japan, and this is his first English-speaking role. He had to apologize ahead of time when he walked into a press conference because his English isn't that good yet...and this is AFTER he made the movie!

So now that you KNOW, go back and see the movie a second time. During EVERY one of his quotes of wisdom given in that musically poetic voice, or EVERY razor-sharp taunt at Nathan Algren, you sit there and try to convince yourself that the Ken in these videos is the same guy that delivers those important lines with such perflect inflection--in English!

Of course acting is so much more than speaking...it's the precise raising of an eyebrow, the sharp and skeptic gaze, the royal carriage, the small gesture, the smirk that almost but never quite appears. Ken Watanabe is the master at all of these, and then some. He's simply larger-than-life, and how he does it is a mystery. I am sure he will be considered a master of the art, in both theatre and film, for decades and decades.

Did I forget to mention that "ken" is Chinese for "modest/humble"?

-- by Teresa M. Schliker
Massachusetts, United States of America