47 Ronin
A sense of great silliness is to be expected from ‘47 Ronin,’ the American movie that interprets loosely the true story about 47 real life samurai who had lost their master and killed him as retaliation. As adverts would insinuate, this film has a mace-swinging troll-dude, huge samurai in full body armor, Keanu Reeves with a katana, double gunned man with tattoos, a sexy girl in sentient Snuggy/kimono floating around and fire-breathing dragon that looks pretty much like Falkor in “The Never Ending Story” but one that’s really pissed off.
Nevertheless, underneath its enjoyable and exploitative presence lies a rich budgeted extravaganza restricted by the need to be both light hearted yet respectful for an honor driven source.
In this version of the commonly told tale, 47 Ronin seek vengeance after young Lord Akira (Tadanobu Asano) disgraces Lord Asano (Min Tanaka) in front of everyone. The offense here was not lack of adequate tribute/bribery as it has been in other versions. This time round however, Akira deliberately leads Asano to break rule number one at some fighting events; only samurais are allowed.
After poisoning Asano’s warrior using magic, Kai (Reeves), half-human/half-monster fights on behalf of his lord just to save his face. However he is dubbed as “half breed” throughout the movie meaning that he’s not a true samurai but eventually ends up being taken captive. Being lenient as Shogun “the ruler of all Japan”, reads an excessively repetitive explanation doesn’t offer any reprieve thus condemning Asano to commit seppuku instead of hanging “like common criminals”.
Thus in this adaptation, it is capricious rather than voluntary for Asano to take his own life. Consequently, according to the shogun, this ronin’s revenge is just a façade of bushido code but as he says it is more of giving it back in equal measure. It is not an entirely mistaken reading of the story but it does raise questions about whether or not the filmmakers could dissect either Asano’s non-personal suicide motives or his samurais’ subsequent movements.
However, what really irks in “47 Ronin” is its makers’ unwillingness to go all out. Ostensibly they have included several outlandish fun fantasy elements. The movie has a plot that is like a lower rent ‘Lord of the Rings’ where a group of macho men have to survive an array of creatures. You’ll see Medusa like hair witch (Rinko Kikuchi) seduce and force feed Mika (Ko Shibasaki), daughter of Asano and ladylove to Kai, using her hair! In addition, there’s a baddie listed as “Lovecraftian samurai,” Reeves blocking out dragon fire with magical sword and avian monks bombarding forest temple samurai. This can be exciting. However it isn’t.
The film’s serious, symbolic elements are meant to be introduced by the good/loopy generic stuff; however, “47 Ronin” creators seem to have taken its self-denying message to heart. The result is that it sets up a lopsided battle of easily defeated villains against heroes we almost find attractive. It reveals why 46 Ronin doesn’t work: it’s just one confused and dreary action movie among many.
Though flawed as an interpretation of folklore, this flick could still have managed dumb and awesome, but fear seems to cripple its makers. But these are only as much intricately detailed as the tragic dutybound aspects which are often tight-lipped with the tragedy that hangs over them.
This drains all exuberance from what should be flamboyant and fantastic. Most of these scenes were unimaginatively choreographed and shot; edited excessively and were frequently out of focus while this script’s fantasy bits were loosely woven together. You shall watch this movie on an Aeroplan and you will fall asleep
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