What am I missing here (I have seen the movie)?

What are you talking about specifically?

Right at the end of the film, after the battle, Tom Cruise talks to the Emperor. He said that if the emperor wants him dead, he has but to ask. Katsumoto said the same thing to Tom Cruise and the emperor earlier in the film!

So, with what he just said there, it kinda confirms that Tom Cruise had become a Samurai. As he was the only one living, he was The Last Samurai!

Okay.

I've seen the movie a few times, but of course my memory is not perfect. I suppose I should convert to Islam and it'd improve! (you have no idea)

Samurai, as a title, I think is less a blood right as it is an honor acceptance.

If you read a lot about the Samurai, you come to see personal aspects are the defining aspect above tradition and blood line.

Samurai, really, was the Way of the Warrior; Bushido. The real honor in the true Way was finding a fighter who was willing to place predetermined resolution and acception of death above the supposed virtue of living onwards through self defence.

In the movie, The Last Samurai, the end result was a perfectly willing fighter who was willing to take to the grave what he viewed as perfection; no compromise, no fault; the perfect ideal of a Warrior.

I really care little for what others might say about the movie, for they are racist and missed the story entirely; that movie was a very good attempt to highlight what I see as the perfect Way of life (PBUI).

Skin color is the most complete irrelevant thing when it comes to Samurai; loyalty, honor, courage, predetermination (where does ethnicity come in? it comes through jealousy or ignorance).

Uh... but to some extents it WAS a blood right, surely? Paupers and merchants were considered different castes to the samurai and I don't think it was possible for someone of lower caste to socially migrate up to samurai status.

That's 100% true, but, consider, everything that made the actual Samurai was nothing in their actual blood.

When it comes to the death of a breed, the mongrel has the last bite.

What was all that nonsense for? I didn't say anything about it being right or wrong that the last Samurai was Cruise... and even if I did say I had a problem with it, it would be more a problem with Hollywood films where the protagonist always delivers a message by being the survivor in the story...i.e. Happy Endings!

True, but you could have had as loyal and courageous and honorable a farmer as you like, and they'd still have said, "Ah, Tanaka-san, you are truly amazing for a farmer... but kindly get away from my daughter. >/"

He could be a hero, but actually called a samurai? Nah, only very exceptionally.

As for the line at the end of the film, I don't think it makes Aldren a samurai. He's a sympathizer; he says the line for Katsumoto's sake to remind the emperor that his most loyal subjects have died to make him realize that the traditions of Japan should be preserved and remembered, or else they face the same cultural (albeit not literal) destruction at the hands of the west as the native americans. The message is "Old Japan will willingly die for the sake of New Japan if that is what New Japan wants, but don't make us something shameful."
If anything, it's painfully ironic. "You've killed Katusmoto, and look what's come in his place; an american mimicking a samurai, the same as you are an emperor mimicking the west. Is this what you want?"

just my 2 cents
 

You may beat me by fists and legs but Kill Bill is a pure crap. That girl armed by a sword looked like an idiot. The overall story is an example of degradation and primitivity.

the point
 

You are right. For a typical illiterate redneck all Asians are the same. Many movies are shot specially for that sort of viewers.....

Like what? Give some examples.