Blade of the 47 Ronin

It is pretty clear from this film, Samurai are far more skilled than ninjas. However, ninjas attack with superior numbers, like in the dozens or hundreds. Those ninjas hordes obey the commands of a witch who has targeted the descendants of the loyal samurai-turned-ronin, who avenged their lord back in the Edo era. It is about as loose as sequels get, but the hack-and-slash martial arts certainly entertains throughout Ron Yuan’s Blade of the 47 Ronin, which releases today on DVD and Netflix.

Supposedly, this is a sequel to the disastrous Keanu Reeves version of The 47 Ronin, but feel free to pretend it is a sequel to the Kon Ichikawa or Kenji Mizoguchi adaptations, because the connection between films is tenuous, at best. In the present day, samurai clans operate in secret, based in Budapest, supposedly because it is a key juncture between East and West, but it also happens to be affordable to shoot there. The descendants of the 47 Ronin guard the magically divided half of a mythic sword that holds a fateful prophecy. The witches hold the other half, but Yurei, the most powerful warlock has gone rogue.

He thought he had killed all the Ronin’s descendants, but there was a secret progeny out there somewhere. Unfortunately, the punky, resentful Luna does not inspire much confidence. She has come to Budapest to sell her late, estranged father’s sword, which is obviously priceless. Luna is a pain, but virtuous Lord Shinshiro protects her anyway. That duty primarily falls to his Bugeisha (samurai warrior woman) Onami, who enlists help from her old confidant, Reo, a ronin, who was forced out of Shinshiro’s service due to a past disgrace.

Scholars of Japanese history and literature will probably be scandalized by the way Blade trades on the names of the 47 Ronin, which is fair enough. However, if you accept the film as its own stand-alone entity, it is pretty fun, admittedly in a meathead kind of way. Ron Yuan (the actor, not appearing in-front of the camera this time around) clearly understands how to frame a fight scene and he is not intimidated by a little blood splatter. The swordplay is often brutal, but it looks great.

Yuan also has the benefit of two major action stars, who still clearly have their stuff. Mark Dacascos is cool and commanding as Lord Shinshiro, while Dustin Nguyen is all kinds of steely playing Lord Nikko. Stylistically, his clan is very different from Shinshiro’s but they are allied in honor. They both have plenty of highly cinematic fight scenes, but Teresa Ting and Michael Moh (Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) have even more. Their athleticism is impressive and they some appealing comrade-in-arms rapport going on.

Japan Speaks Out: Chushingura (1932)

Only Hollywood could turn the 47 Ronin into a flop. It is considered the most adapted story in the history of film, but the essence of its appeal eluded the much delayed studio bomb. There are plenty of versions to try, including films by Mizoguchi and Ichikawa. However, it was Teinosuke Kinugasa who helmed the first sound production. Best known for the Criterion collected Gate of Hell, Kinugasa was a prolific filmmaker comfortable working in many genres. Yet, his Chushingura, as 47 Ronin stories are formally referred to, apparently exists only on one surviving print. If you ever hope to see it, act now when Kinugasa’s Chushingura screens as part of Japan Speaks Out, MoMA’s current survey of early Japanese talking pictures.

Hopefully, someone will invite Scorsese to the upcoming screening, because Kinugasa’s Chishingura demands the full restoration treatment. The print in question can be a little hazy and crackly at times. It is generally frustrating to see cinematic heritage in such a state, but there is something weirdly eerie about the print’s sometimes ghostly look. Viewers can easily work with it, if they are willing to.

For the first sound treatment, Kinugasa was not about to make radical departures from the familiar narrative. The unfortunate provincial Lord Asano is indeed undermined by the scheming Lord Kira, inadvertently committing a social faux pas in the Shogun’s palace due to the senior nobleman’s gamesmanship. Rather put out by the situation, Asano draws his sword on Kira, which is an even greater offense. Sentenced to commit seppuku, Asano’s clan is disbanded and his holdings are confiscated by Kira. This does not sit well with his loyal retainers, led by their commander, Oishi Kuranosuke. They will take their time pretending to adopt new civilian lives, but eventually they will make their move.

Even with the less the optimal print, Kinugasa’s sense of visual composition is striking. One can sometimes see a kinship with his expressionistic avant-garde silents, A Page of Madness and Crossroads. (Seriously, this film needs to go to the top of the preservation list.) He also gets some fine performances from a cast that could not possibly be fully at home with talkies yet. Kinugasa focuses more on the rank-and-file Ronin than the lords and the honor-bound Kuranosuke (more of a Picard than a Kirk this time around). In fact, some of those subplots are wonderfully tragic, such as the junior Ronin who falls in love with a servant girl who transfers into Lord Kira’s service.

There have been hundreds of Chushinguras (someone ought to release a box set of silent and early talkies for jidaigeki fans), but the 1932 version is both historically significant and entertaining in its own right. Frankly, it is worth seeing just as the work of Kinugasa, most of whose films are not widely available outside of Japan. Although they cannot say with absolute certainty, the programmers suspect this is the first time his talkie Chushingura has screened in America and given the availability of prints, it is not likely to pop up again anytime soon. Therefore the 1932 Chushingura is very highly recommended for fans of the Ronin and samurai dramas in general when it screens again this coming Tuesday (5/19) at MoMA, as part of Japan Speaks Out.

Last Knights: There Should Be About 47 of Them

Unfortunately, the early Eighteenth Century band of heroes known as the 47 Ronin were effectively defeated before they ever began to fight. With their lord disgraced and their clan evicted from its holdings, the masterless samurai achieved a measure of payback, but it only delayed the inevitable end demanded by their bushido code. Western concepts of honor and chivalry are somewhat different, but the wardrobe and weaponry are close enough for government work. It is a story Japanese filmmaker Kazuaki Kiriya must have heard countless times growing up. He now brings their classic tale west, resetting it in a Medieval European looking realm for his first English language production, Last Knights (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Lord Bartok is a wise and just clan leader, who also experiments with atonal composition. His forces are captained by Raiden, a warrior who rose up from the peasantry to be renowned for his badassery. While Bartok lands remain peaceful, trouble brews in the capitol, where the Emperor’s chancellor, Geza Mott has become brazen in his corruption. Bartok arrives at court to rally the noblemen against Mott, but he is outplayed by the tyrannical psychopath. Sadly, it will cost Bartok his head and the anguished Raiden will be the one to sever it.

The Bartok clan is dispossessed and dispersed, with his guardsmen assuming civilian jobs. They mostly get on with their new lives, except Raiden, who retreats inside a cask of ale. However, the paranoid Mott cannot believe the Bartok commander is not biding his time, which of course he is. Nevertheless, his honorable but honor-bound lieutenant Ito is convinced Raiden is the empty shell of a man he appears to be.

Evidently, this is the sort of empire Alexander aspired to rule, spanning all the known continents of the Middle Ages. Its relentlessly multi-ethnic composition makes little historical sense, but at least it allows Kiriya to assemble a truly international ensemble, including Morgan Freeman as Lord Bartok, Iranian Peyman Moaadi (best known for A Separation) as the Emperor, Norwegian Aksel Hennie (Headhunters) as Mott, and veteran Korean actor Ahn Sung-ki as his principled father-in-law, Lord Auguste. Some of that casting makes sense, some of it not so much.

Not surprisingly, Freeman gives an exquisitely dignified defiance-in-the-face-of-death speech that the film never really tops. Still, Ahn gives it all kinds of gravitas it would not otherwise have. To his credit, Hennie exhibits no shame or modesty hamming it up something fierce as Mott. It is also nice to see Shohreh Aghdashloo, no matter how briefly, as Lady Bartok. On the other hand, Moaadi just looks and sounds uncomfortable as the Emperor.

Clive Owen is relatively solid in the lead, since Raiden is definitely the strong, silent type. Frankly, he is one of the few name actors working today who is manly enough to swing a broad sword convincingly. Nevertheless, Tsuyoshi Ihara upstages everyone as Ito, the retainer disgusted by his master but duty-bound to do his bidding. He has first-class action chops, but also expresses his character’s classically tragic nature.

Knights is so obviously the 47 Ronin, it is weird the film does not make winking acknowledgement in some way, but perhaps the producers were a little skittish about the connection, given the egg laid at the box office by the Keanu Reeves remake. There is some decent swordplay in Knights, but also some awkward personal drama. Most of possum-playing Raiden’s scenes with his long suffering wife Naomi (Israeli Ayelet Zurer) are truly cringe-worthy. At least the film productively gets down to business when it is time to storm the castle. It is also strangely fascinating to spot each new nationality the filmmakers manage to inclusively shoehorn in. Recommended as a guilty pleasure for fans of swashbuckling with no pretense of verisimilitude, Last Knights opens this Friday (4/3) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

Japan Cuts ’11: The Last Ronin

Terasaka Kichiemon is the 47th Ronin—as in the legendary 47 Ronin. In a departure from traditional Chūshingura story, Kichiemon was instructed not to commit seppuku with the rest of 47, but to live like a character from Shakespearean tragedy to tell the tale to the Ronin’s far-flung surviving family. Senoo Magozaemon was supposed to be the 48th. When Kichiemon spies the presumed deserter it sets in motion events that will reveal the final secrets of the feudal epic in Shigemichi Sugita’s The Last Ronin (trailer here), which screens during the 2011 Japan Cuts New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema now underway at the Japan Society.

In a nutshell, Lord Ako was manipulated into disgracing himself at court by his duplicitous rival, Kira. With his seppuku, his samurai became masterless ronin. However, they remained faithful to their late lord, methodically planning a daring raid on Kira’s castle, culminating in his execution and their honorable suicide. According to Shoichiro Ikemiya’s source novel, Magoza as he is now known, absconded the night before the attack, for reasons hitherto unknown.

Shortly thereafter, Magoza turned up in a provincial mountain village with a small infant girl bundled up against the freezing snow. For the next sixteen years, Magoza informally co-parents Kane with the retired courtesan Mistress Yu. However, the arrangement leads to ambiguous feelings which will become significant as she comes of age. As in any Ozu film, Magoza worries about marrying off Kane to a suitable suitor. She has other ideas. With Kichiemon poking around and their fallen comrades’ significant seventeen year memorial fast-approaching, the truth is bound to come out.

In many ways, Last Ronin might sound like a Chūshingura sequel, as envisioned by the masterful Ozu. Indeed, it is rather surprising how little happens, despite the one hundred thirty two minute running time. Yet, unlike the thematically similar Sword of Desperation, Sugita’s aesthetic values lean more towards the melodramatic than the ascetic. Yet, swords only cross briefly in Last, aside from the early flashback to the fateful day of vengeance.

Kôji Yakusho, so awesome in Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, wrings every drop of tortured dignity from Magoza’s fretted brow. Yet, he keeps the tragically tragic hero sufficiently grounded to hold viewer sympathy. Narumi Yasuda is also wonderfully seductive in an earthy honest way as Miss Yu. If Nanami Sakuraba is really sixteen, than I must be a youthful twenty-one, but given the talk of Kane’s marriage and such, her more mature look is rather comforting. She also movingly conveys an innocent vulnerability as Magoza’s young but eligible ward.

Given Sugita’s approach, Last might have befitted from a somewhat brisker pace. However, it takes honor refreshingly seriously and fully recognizes the complexity of human emotion. Though cynics might call it manipulative, it also builds to quite a swelling crescendo of a payoff. Recommended for unabashed romantics, Last screens this Tuesday (7/12), as does Sword of Desperation, with which it would make a good cinematic pairing during the 2011 Japan Cuts at the Japan Society.