Conducted by Blake Neely

Produced by Hans Zimmer

Release Date: November 25, 2003

                Elektra/Warner
 

     Hans Zimmer continually impresses me. For all the grief that his particular style of composing has been given over the years, I usually find that a majority of them are enjoyable to some extent or another. Now that he has official detangled himself from the Media Ventures outlet (which he has been in the process of for a while now), the scores have taken a downward slope under the pen of Klaus Badelt. Now, I’m sure that Badelt tries his hardest, but I just wasn’t much impressed with K-19 and The Time Machine. Pirates of the Caribbean was much better, but there just doesn’t seem to be that spark that made earlier scores of that nature as impressive as they were (and still are). Perhaps Badelt is a slave to the temp-track until he commands a greater respect that allows him to do his own thing, but until that time, the only saving grace of that style can be found in The Last Samurai.

     Zimmer’s score has been described as “Gladiator in Japan” and I can really think of no better way to describe this score. However, that statement encompasses much more than Zimmer re-writing Gladiator to sound Japanese. The biggest problem with Gladiator was that it had no sense of style. While the film took place during the time of the Roman Empire, Zimmer's score turned out to be quite generic, with hardly any stylistic underpinnings (which was pretty much the same lament towards Pirates of the Caribbean). With The Last Samurai, Zimmer has taken the same structure as Gladiator, but interwoven strong Japanese influences. That alone is enough to make this a much better score, but Zimmer doesn’t bother to stop there. The emotional content of this music is akin to what was found in The Thin Red Line, and is a welcome return to that heavily layered composition. The tone is pretty much the same as well, with a heavy sadness that is found in practically every cue. It is this flavoring that makes it a much better score than Gladiator.

     In keeping with the emotional feel of this score, the action cues are generally kept more subtle than usual, relying more on building percussion and flowing brass moments than outright no-holds-barred trumpet blaring and pounding strings. It’s a different type of action writing than what I’m used to from Zimmer, but anything else in the context of this score would be wrong, and it simply adds to the epic feeling that Zimmer is trying to give to the music.

     Unless you’re just turned off by Japanese influence in a score, or you’ve just never gotten into Zimmer’s style, then definitely pick up The Last Samurai.