Quote Originally Posted by Sensei Warrior
As I look back on this post i realized, I'm probably starting to derail this thread. In the end, I happened to like 'Last of the Samurai', and even though it is probably nothing more than a mildly entertaining movie to most, it does seem to have some nice cinematic elements to it. However the point of the thread was to talk about memorable deaths in film, thus the spoiler tags so you guys can more easily ignore my ramblings. I make my apologies and exit stage left.
I agree with your post, and you make good points on the reasons behind the way The Last Samurai was made. The movie may have been a polarised and over-positive depiction, but I enjoyed it all the same for the fact that it was a good film.

In case you haven't seen it, you may want to try the oldish series Shogun. It's a bit dated at times now, but it doesn't glorify the samurai way but still evokes sympathy for most of its characters. The book's also good.