Over two weeks ago, I got out to The Last Samurai, with Tom Cruise as post-Civil War mercenary in rapidly industrializing Japan. I liked it. Only one truly regrettable cliche, where Cruise’s character lives through a suicidal charge that brings down all those around him, sparing him so that he can deliver the moral message at the conclusion of the film. But the rest of the film is certainly worthy of your dollars (or other currency).
I did find out after the fact that the samurai village in the film was created in New Zealand… hardly surprising, at this point. New Zealand is the new Canada when it comes to making film and television in cheaper English-speaking locales.