Ways of the Warrior?

After a hiatus caused by my family and I moving, I am here again to try and provide all of you loyal readers some more reviews to help you make that hard choice… what to movie to watch tonight.

47 Ronin

Throughout the years, Hollywood has tried to bring tales of far off lands. They have tried to educate us on many different cultures. One such culture that has brought intrigue to Americans is that of feudal Japan and the ways of the Samurai. However, as you may have noticed I have used the word ‘try’. 47 Ronin is that latest attempt for Hollywood to bring the ‘Way of the Warrior’ to American film audiences.

Set in 18^th century Japan, 47 Ronin is extremely loosely based on an epic true story of the heroic Forty-Seven Ronin. After the wrongful death of their lord, 47 master-less samurai must band together to bring vengeance upon the rival lord who is responsible and bring honor to their masters name.

Now you would think that that brief synopsis would be enough to bring together a halfway decent movie, right? Wrong! Hollywood and its infinite wisdom decided to add Keanu Reeves and a love story. Reeves plays Kai, a ‘half breed’ that was raised by demons (enter the fantasy part of the film). The demons have taught him how to “kill”, to put it in his words. The bad part of this is that you never really see his true skill. Some special effects, a small duel with the head samurai, and a climactic battle with a ‘dragon’ later and that’s the extent of his ‘skill’. This movie was a waste of film from the introduction of the word ‘demon’. There is no point to the love story, there is no point to the fantasy aspect of the film, and there is certainly no point to Reeves even being in the film.

 Reeves' is a man of few words and he doesn’t disappoint in this film either. Throughout the film, it just seemed like he was more of a supporting character than a main character. Reeves just seemed to be there with no real purpose and that came across in the scenes that Reeves was in.  The Japanese actors on the film were good, but I felt bad for them. This story is a part of their history and we (the Americans) come in and butcher it completely.

I give first time director Carl Rinsch a small salute though. Rinsch tried very hard with the camera and movement of the film to make it as epic-like as possible. Most of the wide shots were to give us the audience the scope of the landscape of feudal Japan and to show us all of the Ronin together. The sad truth is though; I don’t expect Mr. Rinsch to be back in a feature film director’s chair anytime soon due to the complete disaster this film was.

The only nice thing that I can really say about this film was the action wasn’t that bad. Reeves needed to be left out and the filmmakers should have kept this one in ‘reality’. As it stands right now, Hollywood is still searching for its good Samurai movie.

Verdict: Not Worth Your Time.