47 Ronin: Sorry Keanu

Hello everybody! Today we have an Asian samurai film with Keanu Reeves. Yeah I know…

47 RONIN

DIRECTOR: Carl Erik Rinsch

STARRING:  Keanu Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada, Kou Shibasaki, Tadanobu Asano

GENRE: Fantasy, Action

YEAR: 2013

COUNTRY: United States

PLOT:

The outcast Kai (Reeves), orphaned son of a British sailor and a Japanese peasant woman, joins a group of rōnin, led by Kuranosuke Oishi (Sanada), who seeks vengeance on Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano), a ruthless rival daimyo who, aided by the sorceress Mizuki (Rinko Kikuchi), engineers the shaming and execution of their master and the banishment of the group by the shōgun. (The historical Kira was a protocol officer of the shōgun, not a daimyo.) The rōnin embark on a journey to get their revenge, overcoming challenges that would defeat most warriors.

47 Ronin was a very disappointing film. There I already put it out there. Do I have to finish this review? Yeah? Damn, okay. Let me try and see if I can find something I actually liked about the film. Despite all of the flawed and one-dimensional characters, most of the casts performances weren’t half bad (excluding Keanu Reeves). The majority of the “international” cast are very talented and would have excelled much more if their characters weren’t so damn dull. Also the sets look very nice and authentic, just with a slight fashion twist. Sorry, that is all I could find that I liked out of this mess of a film.

47 Ronin is a surprisingly dull fantasy adventure, one that leaves its talented international cast stranded within one dimensional roles. That is definitely my largest issue with the film, but here I can explain I felt the film did soooo poorly at the box office. First, it opened in December when there is over saturation of movies for the Christmas holiday. Second, the film was “too long in the vault” undergoing editing and people forgot about it. Third, audiences have not been drawn to Keanu Reeves since the first Matrix film more than ten years ago.

Note to Keanu Reeves: Just retire and stop trying, no one has been that interested in watching one of your film since the 1990s.

PROS:

• Talented international cast.
• Authentic sets and costume design.

CONS:

• One-dimensional characters.
• Keanu Reeves.
• Highly inaccurate.
• Keanu Reeves.
• Keanu Reeves.
• Keanu Reeves.

SCORES:  4.0 / 10

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