Let me give a bit of background as to why I watched this movie. Early this morning, I finished watching the 1992 version of Dracula, and while it was pretty good, I felt that Keanu Reeves disappointed me a bit. And so, to revalidate the belief I have that he is actually a decent actor, I chose to watch one of his most recent films, 47 Ronin.
Based on the Japanese legend, the story follows Kai (played by Keanu Reeves), a half-British, half-Japanese man living in fuedal Japan, a country populated by samurai warriors and their respective lords. Because of Kai's mixed ancestry, he was abandoned as a baby and brought up by a man named Lord Asano, father of Mika, a girl Kai ends up falling in love with. After Asano is tricked by the rival Lord Kira and the witch Mizuki, he is forced to kill himself via an honorable suicide ritual. As a result, Kai is banished, and Kira takes Mika as a wife-to-be. Oishi, one of Osana's men, believes that Osana has been wronged, and once he finds Kai again, they rally Osana's ex-samurai, or Ronin, in an effort to avenge their master by defeating Kira. Because it is against several moral codes to seek revenge, especially for Ronin, these men went down in Japanese history as one of the few who dared to stick it to the man.
It should be noted that this film had a very large budget, but was marketed mainly to Japanese audiences and ended up doing poorly at the box office. While I understand why it bombed (as in, no one has been attracted to Reeves except for very recently, which was due to his newest film Man Of Tai Chi), I don't necessarily believe it deserves all of the criticism that it is receiving. The film does have an interesting premise, and the acting and cinematography are adequate. (Notice, I said adequate, not amazing). The action sequences are paced well enough to move the plot along and keep things moderately exciting, but it does lag in a few spots. I have to say that the one thing that bugged me was how some of their historical facts were not exactly correct; for example, there is a scene where Mizuki is reading oracle bones, and it took all my self-control not to yell at the television for how incredibly wrong that scene is. Did no one on the set bother to recall that oracle bones are Chinese and not Japanese?!? Also, some parts of the mythology was a bit cluttered, and sometimes felt as if the producers were trying to incorporate a bunch of ideas at once without checking the logic of the situation.
47 Ronin is really a popcorn movie. And by this I mean that it is a film solely meant for entertainment alone. It is not like The Matrix; the story does not try to make you look deep inside yourself or anything. Sure, there are some interesting themes about honor and integrity and all that, but sometimes that is what causes the major problems. If you are looking for a film that will blow you away with excellent acting and a compelling story, look somewhere else. However, this movie is perfect if you simply want an entertaining piece filled with swordfighting and explosions. In short, I enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure film, and put it right up there with Sucker Punch.
Overall rating: 6/10
The only thing the filmmakers had to do was follow the Ronin story – it’s a great, heroic, tragic tale of banished warriors avenging the death of their leader. They didn’t need to change anything because the material was gold by itself.
ReplyDeleteVery true. But for some reason Hollywood has begun following the trend of "let's make movies out of real stories but change them up so they've got monsters and explosions and are therefore somehow WAY more interesting".
Delete