The Last Subtitle

Here's a thing; I was watching The Last Samurai on TV last night and it was dubbed. What the hell? If there are any amusing moments in this film it is the times when alco-mo-holic Tom I'm-bigger-than-you Cruise struggles to learn Japanese during his stay in the samurai village, the hilarity of which is extremely reduced when Tom Don't-you-ask-me-why Cruise has been speaking in fluent Japanese since the start of the film! And even more bizarre is that the Japanese actors who speak mostly in Japanese, but sometimes in English when communicating with Tom can-you-tell-I'm-excited Cruise have been dubbed over too by someone else! So they have 2 voices each. I cannot believe that at no point while they were working on dubbing this film did someone sit back and think, "Hmm, perhaps subtitles are the way to go here?". Dubbing has a place - B-grade films and tv shows about ninjas who jump backwards into trees. Any film that wishes to be taken seriously must be subtitled, especially if that film involves a 50-50 split over the foreign lagnauge and the audience's language. People, PLEASE stop with the dubbing!!