THE Wild West meets the inscrutable East, Top Gun meets Shogun in this cracking adventure starring Tom Cruise.

Edward Zwick's movie is Hollywood's typical treatment of history and it will never rank among the Samurai classics of director Kurasowa, such as Ran, also now released on DVD.

It is more in the league of Braveheart, beautifully filmed with thundering battle scenes.

Cruise, as always, puts in a solid performance as Tom Cruise - which is fine. His character is Nathan Algren, a Medal of Honor-decorated young captain in Custer's glorious 7th Cavalry during the American Civil War.

He loses his soul when the war is over and is sent to quell the pesky Redskins out west. The massacre of the Plains savages leads our hero to drown his disgust in whisky.

We all love a story of redemption.

At the lowest point of his life, Algren is offered the job of training the fledgling army of an emerging modern Japanese empire.

Renegade warlord Katsumoto - played with controlled sensitivity by Ken Watanabe - brings Algren back from the brink through Bushido, the way of the Samurai.

Blood and honour then fill the screen.

PGW