In "The Last Samurai," a kaleidoscopic epic of late-19th-century Japan, Tom Cruise plays Nathan Algren, a civil war veteran who is briefly imprisoned by a cadre of Japanese warriors. He is also a prisoner of his pants: his perplexed attempts to get in and out of his hakama, a multipaneled sort of Japanese culotte, provide the movie with an element of comic relief. Algren's bemusement is hardly surprising, said Ngila Dickson, the New Zealander who conceived the film's costumes - some 2,000 of them - as well as those of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the third of Peter Jackson's fairy-tale trilogy, which opens Dec. 17. [More]