47 ronin

Year of release : 2013

Run time : 1h59min

Genre : Fantasy / Action

Cast : Keanu Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada

The movie is a fictionalized account of the 47 ronin,real samurai without a master,in the XVIIIth century Japan,who avenged the death of their master,Asano, by battling his rival,Kira.

Kai is a half Japanese-half English outcast, who was found half dead in the woods. Lord Asano,the ruler of the Ako Domain, adopts him,sort of, after one of his samurai tried to k1ll him.

Kai and lord Asano's daughter fall in love, although lord Asano's samurai despise him for being what they call a 'halfbreed' (it's amazing how many problems people were creating in the past for no reason,just to have reasons to fight and not be friends. Not much has changed.) and think him a d3mon.

Lord Kira, the master of ceremonies of the shogun (the military ruler of Japan,appointed by the emperor,the de facto ruler of the country ), wants the Ako Domain, and tries through magic, with the help of his witch, to take it before meeting lord Asano,but fails, so he tries plan B, making his witch poison his samurai who was supposed to represent him in a fight,to disgrace him,but fails,the intoxicated samurai being replaced by Kai,who gets beaten for trying to help (this keeps on happening to him,which was annoying),then goes to plan C, poisoning lord Asano, to make him try to k1ll lord Kira,while under lord Asano's roof.

Given a vision in which his daughter is r@p3d, by Lord Kira, lord Asano is caught right when he tried to strike the former. Lord Asano is told by the shogun he has to k1ll himself. He tells his samurai not to seek vengeance and k1lls himself in a ceremony witnessed by everyone, including the shogun.

The samurai are chased from the land,being branded 'ronin'-disgraced samurai without a master-,his first in command thrown in a hole for a year, and Kai,for his love for lord Asano's daughter, sold as a slave. Lord Asano's daughter is given a one year period of mourning, after which she has to marry lord Kira, and their lands joined.

A year later, Oishi, lord Asano's first in command, looks for his comrades, convinces Kai,who was fighting people on a ship for a living(was a sort of gladiator), and plans to avenge the death of their master.

The movie was entertaining, had beautiful colors and imagery,beautiful architecture and design,interesting costumes,until the last 10-15 minutes, when it lost me.

 

I would have give it a higher rating, but I hated the ending. It just felt there is no justice in the world,no good deed goes unpunished, you do good and expect to be met with judgement and death. You'd think such loyalty would be rewarded, and they'd want such men near, to protect them, but no, they went against the word of the shogun, so pride is more important, and teaching them a lesson. SPOILER They avenged their lord, they brought justice to the land only to be asked to k1ll themselves for going against the shogun's orders! So the moral of the story was, when ordered by your superior, you should never seek justice!Because he knows better,although he doesn't!

Also, Keanu's character gave up knowledge and the realm of the supernatural to be an outcast, to be humiliated by beings lesser than him, just to have the 'honor' of k1lling himself at the end.

I just felt betrayed at the end, as there was no happy ending.

 

The actors were fine. Keanu doesn't have much range as an actor, and in this movie (because I don't remember him in others ) he is not good at mimicking love emotions. When he speaks of loving the woman,there's no love on his face, it's just blank,he looks sad,actually instead of in love (kinda like in The Matrix).

The visual effects were so and so, at times good, other times, bad, you can tell it's fake.

The soundtrack was fine.

I don't know why the man with the tattoo on his face appears on the movie poster,maybe because they think he looks cool, but he only appears for less than a minute in the movie.

The movie was a box office flop, as it grossed 151,8 million dollars,against a production budget of 225 million dollars!

The movie is 7 days free on Starz on the Roku Channel, with subscription on Starz, Starz on AppleTv Channels.

Rating : Worth a watch !