I understand why some would be a little upset
with this film '47 Ronin'. It is a beloved classic
Japanese tale from a historical time and it has been updated
with special effects and wacky witchcraft and all kinds of
crazy stuff. And it stars Keanu Reeves. I imagine
it would be like a fantasy retelling of The Alamo and then
have Martin Lawrence play Davy Crockett, which also would
probably get a lot of people upset. Even though I think
that movie might be kind of interesting. Just like I
thought 47 Ronin was kind of interesting.
A boy runs through the woods when he's stumbled upon by some
samurai. A young man knows exactly what to do upon
looking at the marks upon his head branding him a demon, that
being to kill him dead, but Lord Asano (Min Tanaka) is wise
and spares the boy's life, allowing the Eurasian child to live
with the clan, pretty much as an indentured servant, but it
beats death.
The years pass and the child Kai (Keanu Reeves) has grown into
a man, and the he has fallen for Lord Asano's beautiful
daughter Mika (Ko Shibashaki), and she for him… but if ever
there was a love that could never be, this is the one.
Kai gets this, Mika… not so much. We're not sure why.
The love that cannot be is not the issue we will be dealing
with, however. No sir, the problem is Lord Kira
(Tadanobu Asano) and his right hand lady The Witch (Rinko
Kikuchi) who wants all that Lord Asano happens to possess,
including his daughter. In order to get these things
that Kira desires so badly he needs his witch to do some evil
witch type stuff, and with this mission of hers completed,
Asano's samurai are now Ronin, his daughter is betrothed to a
man she despises, the man she truly loves has been sold into
slavery and now the hateful Lord Kira, under orders of big
boss Shogun Tsunayoshi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), has now taken
Asano's place on the council of Samurai. Or something
like that.
NOT SO FAST! So while these Samurai
have no master, their number one, Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada) has
a plan. Yes, Shogun Tusanoyoshi told him he had better
not seek revenge, but Kira is such a horrible person that
these Ronin really have little choice. Thing is, he
really needs Kai on this plan of his because Kai is so badass,
but Kai, for very valid reasons, is none too happy with these
samurai. Ah, but once Kai hears that his true love that
he can never have is slated to marry this horrible person in a
couple of days, the assault is on.
It's going to be a difficult go for the 47 Ronin… and that
Eurasian dude… with Kira and his witch, who really looks to be
quite invincible, lying in wait to lay these poor suckers to
waste. But they have heart… and love… and their
side. Or something like that.
What a curious movie this '47 Ronin' is, a movie that will go
down as one of the most miserable box offices failures in the
history of cinema for a number of reasons. Such as
shooting it in 3D or giving a budget of 175 million to a
novice director which would be difficult for any movie not
based on superheroes or sequels to recoup, or attempting to
recreate a Japanese legend for an American audience.
There's a reason that foreign actors mask there native accents
while in American films… because an accent indicates 'foreign
movie' and Americans in masses generally don't watch foreign
movies. Not to mention the fact that the ending is not
exactly a happy one. American audiences tend not to like
that either. But for this article, we don't care about
any of that. All we are concerned with is if '47 Ronin'
entertained us for a couple of hours. And we have to say
that it did.
While it might've actually benefited this film to leave the 47
Ronin out of it and called itself something else, we still
have a film that has the basis of a very solid tale to tell,
one full of intrigue, betrayals and the honor code of the
samurai, with the issue of this tale being how to shoehorn our
star in the middle of all of this, since he really doesn't
belong. Admittedly, it was a little shaky at times
integrating Keanu Reeves into the story, and there were times
you could see the virtual seams where they were trying to make
the character of Kai relevant to the story, but when it
worked… it worked well. Keanu Reeves will never go down
in history as a great actor, but he is very effective when
directed towards what he does well. Director Carl Rinsch
may never work again because of this movie, but he understood
his star and he used him well. Besides, Hiroyuki Sanada
was in this film, and he is a great actor, so he got to handle
all the heavy stuff.
You want action? There's action to burn in this
movie. Mythical monster battles, samurai fights, death
matches, and all the running and screaming and dying that you
can shake a stick at. Then there are the CGI dragons and
beasts and witches and whatnot, which I can't attest to how it
looked in 3D on a big screen, but it sure did look good on my
Panasonic Viera. What we are saying is from start to
finish, the movie moved and kept us engaged in its tale, with
only on occasion causing us to mentally drift off to parts
unknown.
That being said, the movie is erratic. It presents a
number of genre's settling on none, the dialog is often
clunky, not helped by forcing actors not fluent in the English
language to speak English, the romance aspects never really
developed, and the ending is a downer. Of course history
said this is how it has to end, but history also didn't have a
witch turning into a dragon causing a ruckus. At least I
don't think so. I wasn't there.
Again, I understand why some take offense towards this movie
and I also understand why it failed so miserably at the box
office. I know this isn't going to help anybody recoup
their money or comfort the folks who lost their jobs over this
fantastic flop, but for a cool night on home video, 47 Ronin
was some fine entertainment.
