Review of 47 Ronin (1994) by David S — 27 Jun 2015

It seems odd to take a story such as this and turn it into a fantasy adventure, it also seems like it would take more effort to go out of your way to change it than leave it as it was but at the same time, it is Hollywood and for what was changed, it worked in the confines of a film. I thought the fantasy aspect was used just slightly enough to differentiate that it was a different world that we were watching.

The film has a good cast, while I'm confused with what they did with putting Keanu Reeves' character in there, I also understand it was probably a studio addition or else the film wouldn't get made or something. I think his name was attached to this at one point but I thought for sure Ken Watanabe would be in this, he could have been the lead, and his name is big enough. However, if you're going to do something like this, although I thought it was a little bit of an odd choice at first, I think Keanu Reeves was probably the best choice. Besides doing a good job, knowing how humble he is in real life, he fits perfectly into the film and doesn't have to have his face in every scene just because he's the big star, he fits into the team and does his job well, it also seemed like he wasn't in it that much either and even so, they all treat him as a second-class citizen anyway. I also didn't think the characters were 1 dimensional either as we clearly see character development happening on screen but for the villain, perhaps. Also, regardless of all of that, I'm glad to see what was able to have been done with a big budgeted action film with only 1 American actor, as anything that is slightly different than that very rarely gets backed this much, if at all.

Despite a pretty choppily looking opening sequence, that also had a different use for the company logo, the film looked and sounded good. The cinematography was great and the action was filmed and edited very well and wasn't just shaky cam close up shots to cover the fact that nobody knew what they were doing, the actors knew what they were doing and they filmed that. I also really liked how the film was put together within a matter of minutes I could already feel how much Keanu Reeves' character had gone through and the scene where his mask comes off in that area? That was a pretty well done, shocking moment and it had a rather sad end, besides, Keanu Reeves has the ability to make us care about his characters right from the word go, so coupling that with good filmmaking, needless to say, it works. Not mentioning what it is as to not spoil it. Even the 3D in this film was actually good for a change and was actually consistent for a change, you see so many films use it a couple times and then forget they had it; not every 3D moment was a cheap one with something flying at the screen, and they actually made it work well. The CGI was pretty good also, even if at some points you could tell it was CGI which is usually the case with CGI anyway but given the budget, seems odd; perhaps it was one of those scenarios where they just spent money because they didn't know how to make a problem go away, I've seen that before.

The only real complaints I have with the film itself is that the awesome looking gun guy in the cover is in the film for about 3 seconds and that in the final fight the person that Keanu Reeves' character saved hangs around in a huge fight sequence, surely should run away to a safe location but stay near to him? There was also a weird fade out for some reason when two characters are walking around a sword, but there was no reason for there to be a fade out because they were just talking to one another. I also wondered what could happen for another 20 minutes because the film ended quite early but then the credits ended up being 10 minutes, so there's that.

You'd think the original tale of the Forty-seven Ronin would be enough of an epic to bring to the screen, with a huge Hollywood budget, without having to change it, but still, this is a very dark, original, powerful and overall different type of film for the mainstream audience and I really appreciate it just on that level, so it helps that I like the film as a whole. The hallmark of a bad film is that you check your watch every so often just hoping that the film is near the end and that didn't happen with this film at all and I'm honestly quite confused at the savage reception this film received. However, I can understand why this would be insulting to all of Japan, given that it is one of the most powerful and important pieces of history of all time and they turned it into a fantasy action flick. However, if it makes anyone feel any better, Keanu Reeves' character is the one who deals with the fantasy elements the most out of everyone. I also think that Hollywood have probably lost even more faith in doing films like this considering that, for some reason, this ended up being one of the biggest box office flops of all time but it does seem weird that first time directors these days seem to get massive budgets for their first film but as a piece of filmmaking I think the director did a very good job. I actually really enjoyed '47 Ronin' I thought it was a well made film, with good characters, good action and it was good to see this culture on the big screen as opposed to another film set in America. While that could be said that wasn't the focus of the film, it was there and I liked it.