Fantasy and history with a distinctly oriental flavor collide in Keanu Reeves' latest actioner set in the breathtakingly picturesque landscape of feudal Japan. Based on a well known and beloved Japanese folk tale, '47 Ronin' is the story of forty-seven masterless and disgraced samurai (ronin) who defied the Shogun in order to avenge their lord, who was forced to commit seppuku as a result of the duplicitous deceit and treachery of a rival daimyo.
Being a fan of samurai history, Kurosawa and Japanese chanbara as well as jidaigeki, I had high hopes for '47 Ronin.' Japanese cult film director Takashi Miike, whom Quentin Tarantino idolizes and cites frequently as an influence, recently brought samurai flicks back in a big way with his robustly violent '13 Assassins' and the more understated 'Hara-kiri.' Therefore, it is really a shame that '47 Ronin' squandered a great opportunity and failed to further broaden the appeal of Japanese samurai cinema to American viewers.
So what went wrong? Purists argued that combining history with fantasy (the movie has an evil shape-shifting witch, forest demons, a giant Silver Samurai right out of 'Wolverine' and a Chinese dragon) was a mistake. However, the story of the 47 ronin has been told on film twice already straight, the first in 1941 and more recently in the 1962 movie 'Chūshingura,' so I won't blame the producers and writers for giving this retelling a fantasy element in light of the success of 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit.'
The fact is simply that '47 Ronin' is bland, uninspired and tepid. None of the characters, least of all Keanu's half-breed outcast Kai, are compelling or sympathetic enough for us to care about. His monotonous, droning proclamations of love to Lady Mika (Kou Shibasaki) lacked resonance and the ring of authenticity, and the over-reliance on CGI only made the movie appear superficial and less 'human.' They spent $175 million on this?!
Grade: C
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