The Keanu Reeves Project - 47 Ronin

47 RONIN (2013) - Kai

I've apparently hit the long awaited "martial arts" Keanu period with "47 Ronin" being the 2nd out of 3 action movies in a row, sandwiched in between the pretty good movie "Man of Tai Chi" and the ridiculously awesome movie that will follow this one (hint: it rhymes with Ron Thick).

I didn't know much going into my viewing of "47 Ronin," this movie was totally new to me and all I could remember about it was that it was roundly panned by critics when it was released on Christmas in 2013.  I did a little bit of research after watching the movie and learned a few interesting things.  For instance, director Carl Rinsch was handed the reigns of this gigantic Universal movie with a $175 million budget despite having no previous experience outside of a handful of shorts and commercials.  Apparently, Rinsch was a young protege of filmmakers Ridley and Tony Scott, and so that must have had a lot to do with it.  What's interesting to me though, is this is still the only major movie directed by him even though it came out seven years ago.  Was this such a disaster that it killed his career entirely?

One other thing that I read is that "47 Ronin" was rife with problems, going through numerous rewrites and reshoots, partially due to the fact that the original version didn't feature enough Keanu Reeves and Universal basically said, "why are we funding this gigantic movie filled with Japanese people that American audiences don't know?" because cynically or not, they probably thought American movie audiences are full of morons who won't watch foreigners on film, even if they're speaking English.  The movie ended up blowing past its allotted budget and eventually ballooned to a reported $225 million.

I also did a little light reading about the real legend of the 47 Ronin, something that is apparently in the mythology of Japanese Culture.  I don't know how deep this goes like if children read about this in school the same way I read about Americana "legends" in elementary school.  In third or fourth grade I can recall having lessons on stories about Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan.  Perhaps Japanese schoolchildren do the same with the 47 Ronin. 

With that said, there have already been about a half dozen movies (mostly Japanese) about the legend of the 47 Ronin and the Keanu Reeves starring "47 Ronin" was the first (and probably last given it's poor box office) to come out of Hollywood and this one apparently dramatically strays from the original legend.

But no matter, we've got a Hollywood movie to make!

Before getting into a full recap I have to say, I did not hate this movie and don't think it's critical ratings are entirely justified.  Yes, it's a white guy unnecessarily placed into Japanese mythology as a savior figure.  Yes, the movie sort of plods along at points.  Yes, there is definitely some silliness, like the entire pirate sequence I'll get to below.  No, some of the logic doesn't always make sense.  

But, the story is totally sound (even if the first half of it is basically season one of "Game of Thrones"), the acting is fine, the visual effects are mostly good (you'd hope so on this budget) and most of the action sequences are pretty fun.  

As always, full spoilers to follow as I write too long a recap for "47 Ronin": 

The movie opens with a long voice over that basically explains why a white guy is living in feudal Japan - a young white looking guy escapes from a forest with scars all over his head and is taken in by the ruler of this particular province, Lord Asano and his daughter Mika.  It's mentioned that they think he either is a demon or was raised by demons, because apparently the forest he ran out of is just rife with them.  

Fucking demons, am I right?

Cut to several years later and the kid is grown up and it's now adult Keanu playing Kai.  Despite the fact that he can never be an actual Samurai due to him not actually being Japanese, he is apparently Samurai-adjacent and he accompanies Asano's actual Samurai to a hunt where he helps kill a giant mystical beast thing.  Even though he is almost entirely responsible for slaying the creature, none of the Samurai show him any respect even though he completely saved a few of their lives.  He gets called a "half-breed" a bunch and is generally shown a complete lack of respect by everyone, which makes me question why he was even invited along in the first place.  Kai also notices that the hunting party is being followed by a mysterious white wolf, which we'll see more of shortly.

Cobra Kai - Beast Hunter

The hunting party goes home to Asano's palace and everyone is happy that this mythic creature is dead and we learn that Kai is also in love with Asano's daughter Mika.  Mika is not given a whole lot to do in this movie other than look hot and be in a lot of distress.

It's important that the hunting party was successful because the Shogun is coming to town for a visit and they can't have demon beasts ruin his vacation.  This whole thing felt very early season one "Game of Thrones-y" but no matter.  The Shogun basically rules all of feudal Japan, so he's essentially the Robert Baratheon of "47 Ronin."  So the Shogun shows up with a giant party with him, including one of Asano's rivals, Jaime Lannister, I mean Lord Kira.

Lord Kira isn't exactly on the up and up and Kai notices that one of his traveling companions has the same strange eyes as the white wolf, except this time the white wolf isn't a wolf at all but a human woman.  Kai tries to alert Asano's top lieutenant, Oishi, that Kira's got a witch with him, but just like all the other Samurai, Oishi basically tells Kai to go fuck himself.  Kai is truly the Rodney Dangerfield of feudal Japan.

The next day there's a big festival which includes a fighting tournament, because as I mentioned above, the first 30 minutes of this movie is "Game of Thrones."  Hell, even Kira's champion fighter might as well have been called The Mountain.

Where's Oberyn Martell when you need him?

Japanese Mountain comes out to fight but Asano's fighter is nowhere to be seen.  Kai goes looking for him and discovers that he's under some sort of trance, most likely cast on him by Kira's witch.  Kai doesn't want his lord to be disgraced by not putting out a combatant, so he puts on some fighting gear and a helmet that covers his face and heads out to fight Japanese Mountain.

Kai starts to fight but gets his helmet knocked off and the fight comes to an abrupt ending because the Shogun is like "who the fuck is this white guy?  He's not a Samurai!"  The Shogun doesn't suffer fools, so he orders Kai to be executed for his malfeasance (there's a notable lack of people explaining their justifiable actions in this movie but I suppose you don't talk back to the Shogun), but ends up sparing him when Mika runs over and pleads to stave off the execution.  

That night, Lord Kira and witch are up to some shady shit.  She conjures a spider and then transforms herself into a floating piece of fabric, enters Asano's bedroom and drops the spider on his face.  This basically causes him to go crazy and have a vision that his daughter is being attacked/raped by Kira and in his madness, Asano attacks Lord Kira who is actually not up to anything other than sleeping.

I'm still not sure of how smart this plan was, had Asano's attack not been stopped by random guards, Kira himself could have been killed from his own plan!  But, no matter.

The Shogun, who has already seen far too much bullshit for one day, is pissed off that Asano would dare attack a guest in his own home.  The Shogun is completely unaware of the Kira and the witch's antics and general tomfoolery so he tells Asano that he's disgraced himself and his familty and the only thing he can do now is kill himself to save his honor.  

Again, instead of trying to explain more justifiable actions, in this case "I was under a spell," Lord Asano commits ritual suicide, leaving all of his Samurai as well as Kai to receive their punishment from the Shogun.

I sentence you to a lifetime of watching the Keanu Reeves movie "Generation Um..." on repeat

Luckily for them, the Shogun spares their lives.  However, they are forced into giving up their titles as Samurai and become Ronin, which are essentially lord-less Samurai with no homes, titles or anything else.  They are also forbidden for seeking vengeance against Lord Kira.  The news is worse for Kai, as he's tied up and dragged away by Kira's men.  And the news is even worse for Mika.  In order to squash any beefs with Asano's province, she's to marry Kira to join the two houses.  More "Game of Thrones" with this whole arc.

Lastly, the news is also bad for Oishi.  As Asano's right hand man, Kira doesn't trust him at all and has him tossed into a pit for a year.  

A year passes and Oishi is freed and immediately goes off to find Kai, who has apparently been sold into slavery.  This is where this movie goes off the rails just a little bit - Oishi discovers that Kai has apparently been sold to pirates and finds him aboard a pirate ship in a fight to the death against some sort of giant mutant monster person.  

I think you stumbled into the wrong movie, mutant dude

Kai dispatches of the mutant, but has also gone completely insane and attempts to kill Oishi when confronted by him.  Oishi gets Kai to calm down and gives him the bad news - all the Samurai or Ronin now and the love of his life, Mika, is set to wed Kira.  

Then for some reason, one of the pirates goes apeshit and starts shooting at them.  I should also note that the pirates in this movie run the gamut from your standard-fare "Pirates of the Carribean" looking dudes to...well, people that look like they fell out of a "Mad Max" film.

I promise you this is a screenshot from "47 Ronin" and not "Fury Road"

Oishi and Kai escape the ship and run back to find the rest of the Ronin, who are all hanging out in the forest together like Robin Hood's band of Merry Men. 

Oishi, now being free from his year long pit imprisonment, is pretty pissed.  Even though he was forbidden from seeking revenge on Kira, what the fuck else is he supposed to do, build a tree house?  So he makes a big Braveheart speech to the Ronin and tells them they're going to find and kill Kira.  Of course, even if they succeed, they'll still die because as I've mentioned already, the Shogun isn't going to put up with people breaking his rules.

The Ronin, ostensibly having been just living in the woods for a year, have no gear and no weapons, so they travel to a place that is literally called "The Village of the Swordmakers," which sounds like a pretty convenient place to find weapons, unless of course that's just an ironic name for the place.

When they get to the village, the entire place is near deserted and trashed, and the only people walking around just happen to be some of Kira's own Samurai.  The Ronin, led by Kai, kill all of Kira's men and steal their weapons, but it's not enough.  Kai knows another place to find the best swords so fine that even Hattori Hanso would be jealous.

Kai explains to Oishi that they have to travel to some magical forest to procure the weapons, but Oishi thinks that the magical forest is just a myth and doesn't think Kai knows what he's talking about.  But Kai explains that he knows about the forest because that's where he was raised after being abandoned by his low-born mother.  

What you might expect the magic forest to look like

All the Ronin and Kai head to the magic forest, which is full of ghosts and mist and other shit you'd expect to find in a creepy magic forest.  They eventually find their way into a cave or something and Kai warns Oishi that no matter what, not to draw any weapons while they're in this place.  Kai ventures off on his own where he's confronted by some sort of demon or alien thing, and he's not super happy that Kai fled the forest so many years ago.  

Screenshot from "47 Ronin" and not "Star Wars"

Back in the room where Oishi is waiting around, the other Ronin enter and a huge battle happens with a bunch of the alien demons, but Oishi stands strong and doesn't draw his sword.  Meanwhile, Keanu uses the powers taught to him by the alien demons and passes his own test by using magic powers to grab a sword before his own opponent can.

Ronin vs Alien Demon Samurai creatures

All the Ronin survive this challenge and are rewarded with brand-spanking new swords.  After a failed ambush of Kira and his men, the Ronin decide to attack him at his own palace during pre-wedding celebrations under the guise of entertainers.  There's a big battle between the Ronin and Kira's men, followed by a fight between Kai and Kira's witch (in dragon demon form) followed by a fight between Oishi and Kira himself. 

 

Kai wins, Oishi wins, Mika is saved and all the Ronin have avenged Asano.  They return to their former home but there's still a bit of bad news.  The Shogun shows up and he's not exactly thrilled that his order was ignored.  Oishi kneels before him and asks that his men die with dignity.  The Shogun says something about how everyone should be executed, but they followed the old ways of the Bushido and honored Asano to avenge the treachery that killed him.  He then says that he no longer sees Ronin, he sees Samurai.

Unfortunately, the Shogun still can't let this shit stand so he allows all of the Samurai, including Kai, to commit honorable suicide.  He gives them a day or so to get their affairs in order, which is basically just an opportunity for Kai and Mika to share a scene where he tells her he'll follow her through a thousand lifetimes to find her again, and then all of the Samurai gather in the temple square and kill themselves, except for Oishi's son who the Shogun spares in order to continue the bloodline.

100 lifetimes for her?  Sure, okay.  But 1,000?

The end.

All in all, I kind of liked this movie, or at least I liked it more than many, many other movies I've watched for this project so far.  Sure, it has all of the problems I listed at the start and it's pretty predictable, but I really liked the ending, in that all of the Ronin/Samurai still have to kill themselves, especially because I could totally see a big budget Hollywood ending going in a completely different direction, even if that meant taking a big dump on the mythology of the 47 Ronin.

And also, this movie just looks good.  Much like "Man of Tai Chi," many of the shots in this movie are absolutely beautiful and there's gotta be something to be said of that, even if the movie itself isn't spectactular.

Just a few scattered thoughts on this one:

*The witch is given a lot of fun shit to do although there are seemingly no rules to what she's capable of.  Of all the magic she performs  in this movie, I think my favorite is when she uses her hair as chopsticks.  I wish I could do that.

*Okay, I mentioned it already but it needs to be stated again just how stupid and out of place the entire pirate sequence was.  Why couldn't Kai have been sold off as a farmhand to work the fields or something?  Fucking pirates?  Ugh.  I seriously hated this part of this movie.

Box Office Information: $38 Million Domestic ($43 Million inflation adjusted)/$113 Million international for a worldwide of $151 Million.  It really did mostly bomb for the domestic audience and was only in theaters for about three weeks.  That international number really saved this thing from being a total bomb, although the reported cost of making this thing rose to $225 million even though the stated cost was $175 million, still a lot of money.

Rotten Tomatoes: 16% Critics/48% audience.  Like I said, I feel this critic's rating is really unfair and that audience score looks more in line with what I'd expect.

IMDB: 6.3

Keanu Rating: 7/10.  He's actually in this movie far less than I had expected, and this is after it was reshot and re-edited to death to get him in it more, I can only imagine what it was like before that.  This really should and could have been Oishi's story, which is why I'm pretty certain the Kai character doesn't even exist in the original mythology of the 47 Ronin.  All that said, Keanu is fine in it, and is still showcasing his action skills.

My Movie Rating: 6/10.  I kinda liked this movie and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Up Next: A little movie called "John Wick."  I've never heard of it.