From the first moment Robert Carlyle's Character is beat to the ground for causing the Japanese guard to "lose face", I was hooked. Every moment I saw in this film caused me to be amazed again and again. A bit of insight was brought into Japanese Culture at that time as I watched these men who were completely alien to that way of life being forced to live under that system.<br /><br />Cinematography wise, there was little to complain about. That doesn't mean nothing... It would take too long for me to go shot by shot, but one thing in particular which is good if you see a few scenes of it, but is annoying the first time is the frequent several second flashbacks... The first couple times I saw them I wasn't sure exactly what was going on (Particularly the fight at the food line) but after I saw it a few more times, I finally figured it out.<br /><br />I don't have much to say about the score. It was good for it's purpose, and the Celtic theme was really interesting to me. Other than that, nothing spectacular (once again, low budget so no copyrighted songs, not that this needed any)<br /><br />Kiefer Sutherland and Robert Carlyle were very impressive, but the one that blew me away was "Dusty Miller" who's real name I don't know. Maybe that's why he blew me away as I think he is an unknown. Cieran left something to be desired at times, but most of the time he was good as well.<br /><br />Many of the Japanese soldiers were good too, but some seemed a bit overacted. The main Japanese guy who dealt all of the punishment seemed overacted most of the time, but the shovel scene really let me see into his character. The translator was very good and I couldn't find much to complain about him. All of the Japanese actors, of course, acted for Kurosawa, so you would expect them to be excelent, but their acting style may be a bit too old for this movie, though they may be quite impressive by themselves or in their element.<br /><br />The message of forgiveness and reconciliation are very needed. I am very upset with an earlier reviewer who basically said if you felt like these people did that you weren't human... How dare he or she just discount something experienced in real life by the person who wrote the story. In contrast to that, the things Dusty and Ernie did were incredibly noble. It's not losing your humanity to forgive, but to eliminate the feelings of hatred in your life is to regain your humanity, remembering that the story was told as it happened.<br /><br />That is probably the most amazing thing of all.