47 Ronin: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

[Zombie_Babies]

This. Just this.

I majored in history in college. I adore history. I continue to read to primarily read history books over other forms. However movies generally make for lousy history. And nothing is more dull in my opinion than a movie that adheres to history for its own sake at the expense of an entertaining story. There is both room for dignified historical epics that cleave to the facts and films that inject supernatural elements into them. Some of the best historical movies i have seen have come out of Hong Kong and mainland China, and many of them deviate wildly from the real history and liberally fill them with supernatural elements. Not as familiar with Japanese cinema, but this movies seems to be drawinyda lot on the wuxia genra anyways. What i have seen of the clips, frankly the only thing holding my interest is the supernatural components.

the bigger problem with this film for me is it seems to be taking the path of the last samurai, where they are affraid without an american actor in the lead role, viewers wont be interested. Keannu Reeves feels less out of place than Tom Cruise, but still.

There's also the occasionally perfectly done historical movie like We Were Soldiers or Flags of Our Fathers or Letters From Iwo. Had they sensationalised that stuff it would have sucked. Hard.

 

[Dungeoneer]

The Japanese have a word for retellings of the 47 Ronin story: Chūshingura.

You know the Power Rangers? The action sequences for Power Rangers are taken from the Japanese "Super Sentai" franchise.

Juken Sentai Gekiranger is the 31st entry of that franchise. It includes an episode that features its own spin on the Chūshingura, with the main heroes being sent back in time and Kira having been possessed by a Rin Jyu Ken user, whom they defeat before the Akō incident starts, and thus not interfering with it.

If the Power Rangers can get into the story, it is not nearly so sacrosanct in that culture as you make it out to be.

Yeah, there's no doubt that there have been re-tellings of 47 Ronin which include supernatural elements.

But this particular movie is a bit different. First, it is introducing the story to the Western world, where people are not familiar with the original story. The story of the 47 ronin is really a story illustrating the uniquely Japanese bushido code. It's not a story about witches and CGI dragons. So I think that having those things in this particular re-telling is going to be confusing for Western audiences.

Second, as non-Japanese people retelling a very traditional Japanese legend, it behooves us to be perhaps a little more respectful of the story than perhaps the Japanese themselves would feel the need to be. If nothing else it says "Hey, Japanese people, we respect your cultural heritage! Thanks for allowing us to make a movie out of it!" Or it would say that if we did...

As I said before, I enjoy a high-flying wire-fu flick as much as the next person. If this were an original story and it happened to involve Keanu Reeves I would happily pay money for a ticket and munch my popcorn for a half hour! But the fact that it's not just another popcorn flick, it's supposed to be the story of the 47 ronin annoys me. Because they've managed to disrespect the story and whitewash the cast all at the same time. Bleh.

I'm curious if anyone could recommend a good Japanese Chūshingura. I don't mind subtitles and enjoy discovering interesting foreign films.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There's also the occasionally perfectly done historical movie like We Were Soldiers or Flags of Our Fathers or Letters From Iwo. Had they sensationalised that stuff it would have sucked. Hard.

Sure. Like i said, there is room for both. And these are more recent periods you are dealing with which usually calls for greater sensitivity because living people experienced them. 47 Ronin however is clearly not atriving for anything like Flags of our Fathers.

 

[Zombie_Babies]

Sure. Like i said, there is room for both. And these are more recent periods you are dealing with which usually calls for greater sensitivity because living people experienced them. 47 Ronin however is clearly not atriving for anything like Flags of our Fathers.

True enough. Time does make a difference.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

If the movie had been well-done... entertaining... had some redeeming value (and even the CGI was intrusive at many points) then sins of disrespect of the original story would have been largely overlooked. Not ENTIRELY overlooked, but success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. The movie is NOT particularly well done. The plot is disjointed. The story is meandering, badly paced and confused. The characters are two-dimensional, unlikeable, and formulaic. The battles are uninteresting and badly choreographed. EVERYBODY in the movie sounds as if English is a second language (which, oddly enough, is a downside for an English-language film) but even without that the acting is universally subpar.

The only real crime here is that they took an interesting story with great potential and made a SURPRISINGLY bad movie of it. All else is irrelevant by comparison.

On the merely adequate side the costumes were okay I suppose; production design was competently done; and the score was not intrusive. On a 5-star scale I give it a 2.

 

[gamerprinter]

Stuff...

When I jumped in this conversation, I was discussing the origin of the story, which the kabuki play and bunraku play (which I didn't mention) counts as part of the origin of the tale and its first retellings. I was not referring to any of it's film derivatives throughout the 20th century and beyond (which there are many) - just the origins. If the movie in question is based on one of those derivatives, then my point is misplaced. I was comparing the movie with the original works only. So now I will just drift out of the conversation, as it's going into territory I have little interest in.