47 Ronin

Let's say you're English. Or British. Either. Both. Anyway, let's say you're familiar with the legend of Robin Hood, pretty much *the* most important British legend alongside King Arthur. It's a story the basics of which you know well and you know broadly how it *should* go. So you go to a cinema to see the latest version and instead of what you're expecting there's an American in the main role.

Ah. Yeah, they already did that, didn't they?

OK. Well, leaving that aside, what about-

Seriously? He's a Kiwi. Come on.

ANYWAY. Let's imagine that you go to see Robin Hood and there's a COMPLETELY INVENTED character who's American-

Oh for fuck's sake. Although at least he disguised his accent a bit.

RIGHT. You go to the cinema and there's a COMPLETELY INVENTED character who's American AND WHO IS NOW THE MAIN STAR OF THE MOVIE and speaks IN AN AMERICAN ACCENT. As in, Robin Hood has become a sort-of sidekick to this completely invented American character.

Now you're starting to understand what we're dealing with here.

He is, to paraphrase Eddie Izzard, "the American dropped into a Japanese movie to make it sell".

I've done a little research, and the story of the 47 Ronin is one of Japan's best-known tales, although opinions differ on whether their actions were or were not a good example of bushido as is claimed by some. Regardless, the main idea is Lord Asano dishonours himself by striking an exceptionally rude guest called Lord Kira, and then has to commit seppuku to restore his family's honour, and then his now-landless samurai led by a bloke called Oishi go and kill Lord Kira to avenge him. So far, so Japanese - everyone's going to die anyway, but how and why they die is the critical thing.

OK, it might not be *just* a Japanese thing.

However, in this Hollywood-ised version of the tale at the heart of Japan's culture, the Japanese roles are upstaged by the completely created character of Kai, a Japanese-British 'half breed' who was apparently raised by demons. Lord Asano and his daughter Mika see something in the boy and decide to keep him, but he is regarded with scorn by... someone else.

OK. I'm mildly prosopagnostic. I have real trouble telling apart the faces of people I don't know. That's generally more difficult when everyone's wearing a fucking kimono and has the same damn hairdo. Someone doesn't like Kai, but I'm damned if I know who. I thought it was Asano's son, but then about twenty minutes in his daughter is apparently his only child, so I've no clue. And she's in love with Kai, because no movie about culture-appropriate vengeance is complete without lines like "I would search for you through a thousand worlds and ten thousand lifetimes" delivered in Reeves' trademark, completely emotionless husk.

So THAT'S what the reincarnation thing was about.

My film reviews normally contain spoilers, as I praise or (more usually) shit all over what I've just seen, but I'm not sure I can really spoil this movie. Besides which... nothing really happens. There's supposed peril-aplenty, but never really any tension or drama. For a movie which involves sword fights, demons, monsters and a fantastically hammy witch (Rinko Kikuchi apparently having attended the Eric Roberts school of acting for this role, perhaps to make up for Reeves' lack of emotion or... anything), the fact that it falls so flat is pretty much a miracle.

The only member of the cast who actually seemed to be enjoying herself.

I could harp on about the lack of logic; Kai and Mika being the same age as kids and then Reeves looking all of his nearly twenty years more when they're adults... presumably the same Hollywood ageing which allowed Jeremy Renner to be Gemma Arterton's brother in 'Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters; the demons which raised Kai giving him a bunch of swords when he needed them because... I'm not sure; Kikuchi's character trying to get the Lady Mika to kill herself before she's forced to marry Lord Kira - the witch's employer - because... I don't know; the witch setting up an ambush for Oishi's men and then happily reporting back that they were all dead even though most of them escaped, because... yeah, you get the idea. However, the real logical fallacy here came from trying to make a film for Western audiences which was tied to such an essentially Japanese story.

Few Western audiences are going to want to see a centuries-old story about a group of Ronin exacting vengeance for their dead master and then all ritually killing themselves; it's just not something which appeals to our psyches, in general. Yes, you can throw in demons and witches and giant samurais to try to glamourise it a bit, but all that's really achieved here is bastardising the original story without really giving it enough of a kick. You want to tell the story of the 47 Ronin, you tell the story of the 47 Ronin. You want to write a fantasy epic in Japan, you get a good scriptwriter and you write a goddamn fantasy epic in Japan, and stop trying to attach it to any 'true story' in an attempt to staple some credibility onto it.

Oh, and while you're at it, don't make this guy the second-largest on the film poster when he only has two lines, simply because you think his tattoos are cool:

Can anyone tell that the director for this had mainly done adverts previously?

It's all about the visuals, nothing about the content.

In conclusion: this is a film which tries to be two things and succeeds at neither, probably pissing off most of a nation in the process, and can't have done anyone involved any favours, least of all the serious Japanese actors involved.