Review of 47 Ronin (2013) by John R — 05 Jan 2016

The story of the 47 Ronin is one of the most celebrated in the history of the Samurai. The true story briefly centres around 300+ Samurai, who became Ronin after their Lord was forced to commit seppuku. Of these, 47 refused to allow their Lord's death to go unavenged, and set about seeking revenge. They spent the next 14 months deceiving everyone into thinking had become drunks, tradesmen, or monks. The plan was to lure their target into a false sense of security and thereby increase their chances once they eventually attacked.

The whole thing is fascinating, intriguing, interesting, and many other words ending in ing.

None of these words can be used to describe this film.

The reason is that this film has nothing to do with the story of the 47 Ronin, it has just simply stolen the title in order to "cash in" on the fame and popularity of the actual story.

Bizarrely the film is set in a fantasy world. At the beginning of the film we are introduced to an action sequence featuring an attack by an entirely mythical beast. Nothing wrong with that per say expect that no other mythical beasts are seen for the rest of the film. So are we having a fantasy setting or not, if you are why are there no more mythical beasts, if you aren't going to bother any more why stick one at the beginning? Oh yes, there is a fifteen foot walking set of Samurai Armour with no one in side it as well, but that a totally unexplained and highly confusing character, which has no need to be in the film as everything it does could have been achieved by a real person.

There is also a shape shifting witch, again, nothing wrong with that, expect that she's the only one. The other problem as well is that even though the witch can transform herself, none of what she actually does requires her to have magical powers anyway, all her actions could have been performed by a normal human character without magical abilities, all they require is a knowledge of hallucinogenic poisons. She seems to have been given shape shifting abilities for exactly the same reason the film starts off with a mystical beast, because all the GCI looks good onscreen.

There is also no explanation other than "he wandered out of a magical forest" to explain why Keanu Reeves character, a westerner, is in 18th Century Japan. (all be it a mystical fantasy version of 18th Century Japan).

In short, the film can't decide what it is, and most of it makes little or no sense, which is understandable once you learn about the huge amount of studio interference that caused the film to be re-written and re-shot until it became so confusing no one knew what the hell they were doing any more.

The studio apparently had very high hopes for this film in Japan, showing their total misunderstanding of the Japanese market. Imagine if the tables where turned. Imagine if the Japanese made a film about the battle of the Alamo. Imagine they cast a Japanese actor as the main lead, imagine if they ignored the heroic last stand element that has cemented the story deep into US folklore and instead, into the film, inserted Wizards, Witches and Godzilla battling Mothra. You start to get the idea.

If this film had actually been about the 47 Ronin it would have been good, if it had been made by the people who made 13 Assassins it would have been lots of words ending in "ing". But it wasn't, and it isn't. It's just sh*t, a confusing mess of a film and serves only to illustrate why Studio's should not interfere with the visions of film makers.

There are not really any redeeming features that I could call upon to recommend you watch this. Instead read a book about the 47 Ronin, it's much more interesting, or if you want to watch samurai hacking each other to pieces watch 13 Assassins. But don't whatever you do watch this, ever.