Movie review - "47 Ronin" (2013) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

I can think of a lot of worse films which deserved to lose more money for there are a lot of good things about it: the production design, special effects, performances from Hiroyuki Sanada (hero) and Rinko Kikuchi. Keanu Reeves admittedly is Keanu Reeves but he can act well enough and his looks fit in with the time setting. And even though I'm not Japanese and don't have the cultural connection to this story, surely there's nothing wrong with adding a little fantasy (i.e. huge creatures, witches and serpents) to it?

Rinko Kikuc

The main problem is Keanu plays the lead and his character could have been cut out of the entire movie without much impact on the story. He doesn't start the action, or complicate it, or affect it - everything would have happened without him. The hero is Sanada.

Compounding this is the fact Reeve's character doesn't have the emotional stakes of Sanada's - at the end when he joins in the mass suicide with all the others, it doesn't make sense (he's not Japanese, it doesn't mean as much to him; he was never a samurai; why wouldn't he go and hang out with the hot daughter?) They compound it by giving screen time to Sanada's son, but no other Ronin except a really fat one.

They only should have made this film had they centered it around Reeves - make him responsible for the death of the lord, or his illegitimate son, or have him organise the 47 Ronin. I'm sure this was considered but they got cold feet. Well, they ended up with something that pleased no one, so the good work from a lot of the cast and the production design and other tech people will go mostly unseen.

It's not helped by the fact Game of Thrones has showed how you can combine fantasy, history and war along with three dimensional characters and complex plots - this is far too simplistic, and its characters too dull (especially the leading love interest who is a nothing, and the head villain is bland... outshone by the witch).