Great Movie, Fantastic HD Quality

After picking up my HD DVD player I've had troubles watching regular DVD movies. I had heard some good things about this movie but couldn't pass it up once it was in high definition.

The story is pretty good. This is the story of Captain Algren who has been sent to Japan in the late 1800's in order to help them modernize the Japanese army as they go from fighting with swords and arrows to machine guns and cannons.

After the "modern" Japanese army prematurely attacks the Samurai and lose horribly, Captain Algren is taken captive by the Samurai and introduced to their way of life and refusal to lay down the sword in the name of compliance. In time, Captain Algren finds himself wanting to become one of the Samurai and learning more of their way of life.

The story is pretty good but what raises this up to the level of being outstanding is the high definition quality of the movie. It was fantastic, especially seeing the colorful Japanese landscape in all of its magnificence.

If you like Tom Cruise action movies, this is one to pick up especially in high definition (whether it be Blu-Ray or HD DVD). The violence can be extremely graphic (hey, this is war) so if you are sensitive to that you may want to look for something else. Otherwise, the pacing of the movie is pretty good. It isn't an all out gore-fest... there is action and then it breaks and lets you relax and catch up a little bit and then goes back to action and so on and so forth.

poor sound

i have last samurai HD DVD and BLU-ray..the HD has a poor sound but the BLU-ray has a great sound...the picture quality is the same for Blu-ray and HD DVD and there`s no much diffrent from regular DVD

HD DVD PQ

I only review the picture and sound quality of this HD DVD here.
First of all people who claim there is no difference between this and the SD DVD is either blind, or have bad equipment issues. While it is a definitive step up from the SD DVD I would agree that this isn't among the best I've seen. There is nothing particularly wrong with the transfer, but it lacks that "3d" look that some of the best HD DVD titles offer.The goods are very accurate colors and contrast level, black level is also good with ample shadow detail.Film grain is at minimal, and don't see any edge enhancement.Sharpness is where the problem lies, and so is detail is lacking a bit. This movie didn't have the typical big action picture sound, though it had a sweeping score, and some battle related sound, but it won't be your new demo disc. The Dolby Digital+ sound does as much as it can with the source, and it's by no means is bad, it's just not all that great. All in all it's an above then average discs, and if you like the movie then this is the best it looks right now on home video.