47 Ronin (**½)

Directed by: Carl Rinsch

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Rinko Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Sanada, Kou Shibasaki, Tadanobu Asano, Min Tanaka, Jin Akanishi, Masayoshi Haneda, Hiroshi Sogabe

Seen: December 27^th 2013

**½ Out of ****

47 Ronin is a fictional fantasy reimagining of the story of the forty-seven Ronin, an 18^th century group of Samurai without masters, out to avenge the murder of their master. Keanu Reeves has been relatively quiet of late, appearing in smaller indie movies. He is back as Kai, an outcast martial arts warrior who eventually leads the 47 Ronin. 47 Ronin features some good fight sequences featuring samurais, fantasy creatures, and more. The production is decent and provides for a relatively entertaining movie without it being earth shattering.

In the small village of Ako, in feudal Japan, Kai is a half-Japanese and half-British outcast. Lord Asano Naganori (Tanaka) rules over Ako, and once found Kai in the woods, where he lets him live in peace. Kai is in love with Mika (Shibasaki), Asano’s daughter, but it is forbidden, as Kai is an outcast. Ako is preparing for the visit of the Shogun, whose master of ceremonies, Lord Kira, arrives ahead of the Shogun to prepare the way for him. Kira becomes attracted to Mika and arranges a fight between his best soldier and Yasuno (Haneda), one of the region’s samurai, led by Oishi (Sanada). Yasuno is however found to be under the spell of Kira’s adviser, Mizuki (Kikuchi), a witch. Kai replaces Yasuno, but he can’t win the fight, and Oishi and Asano are humiliated. Later, Mizuki bewitches Asano into believing Kira is raping Mika, and when Asano attacks an unarmed Kira, he is shamed and allowed to commit seppuku, while his samurai are all branded Ronin. They are banished and Mika is granted a year of mourning by the Shogun before she will be handed over as Kira’s bride. A year later Oishi is released from captivity in a deep pit, where Kira’s only aim was to break his spirit, and he gets the Ronin together, including Kai, to avenge Asano and save Mika, but to get there they will have to obtain weapons and go through Mizuki, two tasks that will be more challenging and difficult than they could ever have imagined.

47 Ronin is a fun piece of fluff entertainment that isn’t very memorable, but is enjoyable while you’re watching it. Keanu Reeves is about 75% as cool as he was in The Matrix and it is good to see him in a movie like this again. The visual effects are pretty standard stuff and lends a credible level of believability to the movie in context of what the story actually is. There is a certain level of inventiveness that you don’t often see in movies anymore, and that I certainly appreciated. 47 Ronin does what it sets out to do, and even though it isn’t “high art”, I enjoyed it quite a bit.