Once upon a time, in Japan, a land of mysteries and legends (or so we’re told), a company of masterless warriors and a middle-aged man of mix-cultures, assassinate a Lord in the name of vengeance and dignity – and yes, part of this is a true story.
In “47 Ronin”, directed by Carl Rinsch, (an ad-filmmaker who worked for Ridley Scott’s advertisement company), for once the source material comes prepackaged with the goods. Forty-seven masterless samurai (aka rounin) avenge their wrongly convicted lord (Min Tanaka), who was sentenced to hara-kiri by the shogun (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) after a conflict with another lord. 47 Ronin, the legend not the movie, is a piece of Japanese history, with a hard to bypass ending: Spoiler Alert! – the ronin, after successfully assassinating the other lord, Kira (Tadanobu Asano), are sentenced to honorable seppuku on their willful surrender, resulting in a parable of obedience and loyalty.
In this epic translation to the big-screen (which, is the fourth adaptation I’ve seen), the honor-bound drama adds a shape-shifting witch (Ms. Kikuchi) in Kira’s servitude and a foreigner half-breed (Keanu Reeves) for smooth Americanization.
As a center-stage star, realigned to the sides, Mr. Reeves plays Kai, who as the trailer tells us in bold capital, one-word sentences is: “an outcast; exiled; enslaved; destined; for revenge”. As the pseudo-lead (Mr. Sanada, as Oishi, leader of the band of ronin is the real hero of the tale), Kai is partly raised by forest demons, which gives him twenty-twenty hindsight in identifying demonic possessions, and also has a romantic lead in the lord’s daughter Mika (Ko Shibasaki).
Mr. Reeves, with all the emotional vacancy he can afford, isn’t the first one in recent history to play this role. A far better variation, with a sounder political tint and no demons starred Tom Cruise as a distraught American hired to train and lead a newly commissioned army against a rebel samurai faction, also honor-bound to serve Japanese tradition.
“47 Ronin” can easily do without swooshing evil spirits, fake dragons and rampaging fantasy beasts (the first multi-eyed, multi-horned, beast that tears through the forest, and slain by Mr. Reeves maybe a digital re-cast from Hayao Miyazaki’s “Mononoke Hime”); their inclusion is as wispy as the other cinematic preconditions that pop-up throughout the movie, including the generic contrast-y color palette by production designer Jan Roelfs.
As it is, other than the stoic retelling by writers Chris Morgan and Hossein Amini, there are a lot of things already going against “47 Ronin”. The movie, as if suffering from bad mojo of its own has a damaged public image, with reshoots, release reschedules and announcement of pre-release financial losses. Every one of these is unjustified cause of box-office failure, because frankly I’ve seen worse movies of the same genre.
Mr. Rinsch, who is oft pedestrian, does flash cinematic chops worthy of an event filmmaker. However, owing to the weight of handling a high-stakes, stressful production – the influence of which also shows up in his actors too-Hollywood-y performance and the editing by the usually dependable Stuart Baird (1978’s “Superman”, “Skyfall” – making the movie in these circumstances is like working with a jammed pistol; one that is liable to fire in your face at the wrong moment.
Released by Universal and Footprint Entertainment, “47 Ronin” is rated PG-13 for scenes of violence against man and demons, and some nasty spell-casting.
Directed by Carl Rinsch; Produced by Pamela Abdy and Eric McLeod; Written by Chris Morgan and Hossein Amini (based on a screen story by Mr. Morgan and Walter Hamada); Cinematography by John Mathieson; Edited by Stuart Baird; Music by Ilan Eshkeri; Production design by Jan Roelfs.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada, Min Tanaka, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi and Ko Shibasaki.