47 Ronin

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can get behind a movie like 47 Ronin, and those who make me sad.

47 Ronin is set in a mythic, legendary Japan.  It tells the story of 47 samurai who, though outcasts following the dishonor of their master, hatch a plan to redeem his honor and set the world to right.  It’s steeped in a heightened, storybook version of Japanese bushido culture, and it’s wonderful entertainment.

Keanu Reeves plays the financing necessity – no, wait.  That’s unfair.  While Reeves was, most likely, the key to a financing and distribution deal, he’s perfectly fine here as the half-European, semi-mystical outcast and audience identification character.  Yes, he’s a bit wooden, but that plays well in a story set in a rigidly controlled, hierarchical society.  Beyond that, he’s game for whatever the movie throws at him, and he doesn’t embarrass himself or the production.

I could name check a couple of Japanese actors whose names would be familiar to movie buffs, but all you really need to know is that this is a beautiful production, professionally acted and directed.  Yes, much of the monster-related CGI is dodgy, but so what.  This is legend.  Roll with it.  More importantly, the story makes sense, the action sequences are a delight, and my 14 year old and I rocked along with smiles on our faces throughout its running time.

All this for a movie I saw reluctantly.  I’m currently polishing my annual Best/Worst post.  Though this film won’t make either list, it certainly counts as my biggest surprise of the year.  I’m delighted to report that 47 Ronin is a winner.

Mongol

MONGOL does almost everything I want a movie to do: it takes us to a different time, a different place, and a different culture. It educates and entertains, and it does so by giving us interesting people living in interesting time. I invested in the film's hero, Temudjin, and his family. I wanted them to overcome the odds against them and emerge victorious, and I was happy when they did so. (Hey, it's a biopic. They don't make biopics about people who get killed in their teens. Surely, that can't count as a spoiler.)

However, MONGOL does one thing I never want a movie to do: it makes me scratch my head and wonder, "What were they thinking?" Why does the film show us a young Tamudjin falling through the ice on a frozen lake, yet never shows us his escape? Why does the film go to such lengths to underline the brutality and unrelenting nature of his (one-time) captors, only to give us an (apparently) magical deliverance and expect us to believe the captors simply lost interest in him? Why does a movie that expects us to accept that Tamudjin can survive upwards of four years in a tiny cage also expect us to believe that he can emerge from that cage ready to fight, climb, run, and love? Why do the filmmakers go out of their way to explain that Tamudjin wins his climactic battle through strategy, then show us only the first phase of the strategy before turning to what can only be considered divine intervention?

Now, I'm not normally one for head scratchers. I'm willing to go along with what a movie has to give me. But these omissions and errors blew my suspension of disbelief. While MONGOL is a fine costume drama / National Geographic special, I think it could have benefited from one more pass at the writing table and the editing room. Perhaps the filmmakers will do better with the second film of this proposed trilogy of the life of Genghis Khan. I hope so, because I'll be there to see it.