It stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Jodhi May in the leading roles, and features Russell Means, Wes Studi, Eric Schweig, Steven Waddington, Maurice Roëves and Patrice Chéreau.
[5] It was also nominated for seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Actor in a Leading Role for Day-Lewis, and won Best Cinematography and Best Make-up Artist.
During the trek, they find some of their friends massacred at a farm, but do not stop to bury the victims so as not to alert the Hurons to their presence.
After Munro refuses to honor an agreement made by Webb that the militiamen could leave to protect their homesteads if they were threatened, Hawkeye helps the men sneak away.
But when Munro learns that Webb will send no soldiers, he is forced to accept French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm's terms of surrender; the British can leave the fort honorably with their arms.
The sachem rules that Heyward is to be returned to the British, Alice be given to Magua for the wrongs done to him by Munro, and Cora be burned alive.
Hawkeye then holds the rest at gunpoint, allowing Chingachgook to fight and kill Magua, avenging Uncas' death.
[6] In preparation for his role, Daniel Day-Lewis took part in weeks of wilderness training with US Army Special Forces personnel, learning to use period weapons, start fires, and hunt and skin game.
[8] Although the story takes place in upstate colonial New York, filming was done mostly in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
[9] The set of Fort William Henry was constructed at a reported cost of US$6 million on felled forestry land (35°47′40.69″N 81°52′12.10″W / 35.7946361°N 81.8700278°W / 35.7946361; -81.8700278) adjacent to Lake James in North Carolina.
[10] The musical score was composed by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman, with additional cues written by Daniel Lanois.
The film was again re-edited for its U.S. Blu-ray release on October 5, 2010,[17] this time billed as the "Director's Definitive Cut", with a length of 114 mins.
The site's consensus states: "The Last of the Mohicans is a breathless romantic adventure that plays loose with James Fenimore Cooper's novel – and comes out with a richer action movie for it.
Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars and called it "quite an improvement on Cooper's all but unreadable book, and a worthy successor to the Randolph Scott version", going on to say that "The Last of the Mohicans is not as authentic and uncompromised as it claims to be – more of a matinee fantasy than it wants to admit – but it is probably more entertaining as a result.
[23] Rita Kempley of the Post recognized the "heavy drama", writing that the film "sets new standards when it comes to pent-up passion", but commented positively on the "spectacular scenery".