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47 Ronin impressions

Today I saw the film 47 Ronin. In my opinion the film had many problems. I really expected more from the film, but it just didn’t do anything special for me. And here’s a list of why the film didn’t work:

  1. Keanu Reeves didn’t fit in with the storyline.  I mean don’t get me wrong, Keanu Reeves is a great actor, but it was clear his part was “added” for that grand Hollywood effect. Except in this case Keanu was part of the problem.  His part just felt so random to the film and was irrelevant. The only reason he was needed was because of his special fantasy abilities. Ok… but isn’t Oishi supposed to be the main character? See that’s another problem. I just didn’t know who to focus on in the film.
  2. There were no rules in this “fantasy” version of 18th century Japan. This ultimately left more questions than answers by the end of the film.  For example; how old was the witch? Or how powerful was she truly? Why were the demons hated for their beliefs? And what were there beliefs, besides that “the only thing this world has to offer is death”?
  3. No character development. What was Lord Kira’s background that made him evil? What were the personalities of the main characters?

Before the Movie

The movie, “47 Ronin” seems like another Hollywood hyped up version of an older movie/story that relies on the actors and the special effects. While the movie is based off a true story the previews show that it take liberty with the story and adds a fantasy twist to it. It also seems to follow stereotypical portrayals of Asian females being “Dragon Ladies” that are villains with a heroic male saving the day.

47 Ronin

I wasn’t particularly sure what I was expecting to see in this film. Since I had not seen any previews or heard much about the film, I didn’t have any possible ideas.

I thought it was absolutely great to see a recent Hollywood film with almost all of the major roles filled by people of Japanese descent with such huge names. It was quite stunning cinematography, and the costuming was beautiful. I really enjoyed how it tried to blend fact and myth by adding in the mysticism and magic.

47 Ronin

I have seen 47 Ronin previous to this class. This movie was based off of a true story that occurred in feudal Japan,

 

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47 Ronin 2x

The first time I watched 47 Ronin I was a little dissapointed and confused. That reason was because I expected it to be one of those typical movies now-a-days where everything works out, you know what to expect, and there is a happy ending. Everybody who I wanted to live ended up dying, I was hardly right about what to expect, and I did not get my typical happy ending. However, after watching it the second time, I realized that there was more to this movie other than entertainment.

The second time around watching this movie, I understood that there were some truths to this tale. Though it was whimsical and magical, there was some historical facts behind it. In today’s society, we see suicide as an awful act no matter what the cost; however, in 47 Ronin, each samurai graciously accepted their punishment to kill themselves and be layed next to their master, with great pride, I might add. The first time I watched the movie, I was disappointed, but I now understand that that’s how things were back then in Japan. I see now that the movie is about loyalty, dedication, and pride. Every samurai in 47 Ronin had a place, a role, or a duty to fulfill and seeing the characters that way opposed to an entertainment character makes me understand the movie in a new scope. Overall, I ended up enjoying this movie and appreciating what it had to bring to the big screen.

“47 Ronin” Impressions

I haven’t even yet seen the trailer for this film yet, but I am aware of the original story of “47 Ronin”. Seeing that Keanu Reeves is in it, I feel like this is going to be a very action based film, which may or may not relate to the original story. I’ve always been quite the pessimist about adaptions, especially those of Western adaptations of Eastern film.

Post-Film Response:

(Please forgive anything inside parentheses, they are my own asides and thoughts without form, grammar or spelling accuracies. Please view them as my own unrelated to the formality of any work I might do this quarter.)

From a casual moviegoer’s standpoint, I really liked this movie. Impressions of a foreign culture, imposed in an understandable way to audiences, coupled with some pretty awesome action scenes and even a little bit of a tragic “Romeo and Juliet”-esque love story, thus film had a little bit for everyone to enjoy. I very much appreciated it’s attempts. The more analytic side of me really did not enjoy this movie. I’d like to start off by asking to forgive my nitpicking. The shogun present in this film is Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was the shogun during the well-known Edo period (also referred to as the Tokugawa period). While this is historically accurate, the costumes in the film are a bit off.  One example of this in particular I noticed, in the background of several scenes we see several women with faces painted white with high painted brows, white powder covered faces, and bright lipstick. This particular style is overwhelmingly reminiscent of Heian fashion. For reference, the Heian period ran from 794 to 1185 A.D., whereas the Edo period ran from 1603 to 1868 A.D. Don’t you think 500 years is quite a long time for fashion to develop? The styles presented in Edo Japan were very different. The costumes where also overwhelmingly off (what was with that turtleneck thing during the wedding ceremony, amirite?). While these weren’t the only continuity errors I noticed, I was willing to take it with a grain of salt and suspend my disbelief for the sake of the film.

My biggest complaint with this Westernized version of the story is its unrealistic nature. Had this story been made eastward, it would have been a very accurate and realistic representation of its original story. The inclusion of supernatural into the story, however, I can sort of understand, as many revered Japanese stories rely on supernatural events to express extreme emotion or the like. Several examples of this can be found in a well known story, called The Tale of Genji, by Shikubu Murasaki.

There are some other subject that could be touched upon here,  referencing particularly Japanese stereotypes, but I’d like to wait until our class discussions and revisit this post at that time.

47 Ronin

Once you accept the fact that this narrative has little connection to the historical tale of the 47 Ronin, it becomes a kind of “Kai and Oishi’s Excellent Adventure.” Kept waiting for Kai to call a fellow ronin, “dude.”