The keeper of A Leaf on the Wind has been somewhat under the
weather of late, hence the brief lapse in daily topics for SPEED 2 Month. That
hasn’t meant I haven’t been able to watch some truly lackluster film projects,
of which will be covered over the next few days.
First, the Day 10 edition will cover a brief foray into
something that should never, ever be seen by anyone. Sadly, it was never
released to the big screen so it cannot defrock SPEED 2 from being King of the
Hill, here. I picked it up after posting the retrospective of the lovely Sandra
Bullock’s career, thinking it’d be a fun comparison to the titular focus of the
month. It has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with the film she appeared in,
but it had no problems using name recognition to try and get a few bucks out of
it.
THE NET 2.0 is one direct-to-dvd mess that only the most
foolhardy or brainless need waste their time with, as the plot make not one
lick of sense, nor does much of the acting. It’s got nice scenery, when it’s
not being reused to keep costs down on this turkey, but stay the hell away from
this thing. It’s the dumbest, worst, most inept thing I’ve seen since someone
made me watch FRINGE season 3.
Once I recovered from watching the atrocity that was THE NET
2.0, I plunked in a film I’d seen before, but was brought up on a recent From
the Hip podcast as being one of the costliest movies produced. Starring the
hero of SPEED himself, Keanu Reeves, 47 RONIN made waves all through Hollyweird
because of the length of time it took to be released, reshot, rewritten,
redubbed, re-edited, re… well, you get the idea.
Finally released for the last week of 2013, 47 RONIN quickly
disappeared from screens across the country as Universal Pictures refused to
have anything to do with their 175 million dollar baby. A loss-leader this
giant anchor wasn’t, as even the trade press had nothing but incongruous things
to say about it, including before the release. I’m not sure what they think
could have been wrong with it; it’s a fine experience in filmmaking. Of what not to do.
Let’s take a look at the general plot of the movie, which is
based on a Japanese historical event during the days of feudal Shogunates. The
movie takes actual events, of which some are likely not completely known, skews
it to fit their own ‘mystical’ land of Japan, rife with witches, dragons and
other creatures, then to add a not-so-small insult, tacks on the half-white
character that Keanu plays, just to get the stupid Americans to be able to
watch the movie without having Lite Beer offered up as incentive to sit in the
theatre. Is that harsh? It’s obviously what Universal thought, as they needed
to make a great story even greater, in their eyes. Are you that insipid, you
movie-going American public? Do you need a white guy to play a completely
fictional role when there are at least 50 other characters in the movie that could
be even more exciting to watch? What’s happened between 2000, when CROUCHING
TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON was released, and now? Stories set in Japan are not as
good as those set in China? Has the American film watcher forgotten about the
great Akira Kurosawa? Universal Pictures, what the hell is wrong with you? If I
was a Japanese citizen and had some knowledge of country history, I’d be
offended and appalled at just the addition of Keanu, besides the other hideous
story elements added for more “punch”.
I’ll put it in
perspective. Take the Boston Tea Party incident of 1773, an incredibly
important historical event in the formation of the United States. Instead of
colonists boarding a ship in Boston harbor, let’s move the entire story to San
Francisco in say, 1900, make the ship a clandestine invading force of Chinese
monkey-people and the hero is a Mexican bandito with a dubious Mexican
background played by, oh, let’s say Clive Owen. Why not Clive Owen, he’s big
and strong and masculine and can play everything that he’s told to play. I’ve
seen him perform as a Roman soldier and as Ernest Hemingway, so there’s nothing
he can’t do, right? He could probably know Kung-Fu too, if he was paid to.
See the righteous nonsense there? Blah, Universal Pictures,
you bloody suck.
The story of the 47 Ronin is a fairly simple one, with all
the gloriousness of Japanese feudal society and as much swordplay as can be
imagined. The Shogun is holding a reception with two other daimyo’s, Asano and
Kira. During the reception, Asano assaults Kira and is sentenced to seppuku by
the Shogun. The samurai of Asano are now ronin and are not allowed retribution
until one year is up. After the year, the ronin gather together and kill the
daimyo Kira, fulfilling their code and honoring their former lord. The Shogun
allows them all to commit seppuku, in accordance with the code of the samurai,
allowing them all to die with honor.
There have been at least two other filmed versions of the 47
Ronin, one in 1941 and one in 1994. I guarantee that both are better in
numerous ways than this version, which is not entirely a terrible film, just a
terrible version of a great tale that doesn’t need much to embellish it, even
for today’s moviegoers. Even so, it fits within what the Japanese call Chushingura, fictionalized stories of
the 47 Ronin. So, where I may find effrontery and insult, it may not actually
be seen as such by fans of Chushingura.
47 RONIN betters SPEED 2 in so many ways I had a hard time
picking it to make the comparison. It’s not a bad movie, just not a very good
one. It’s completely watchable, but it misses too many cues to be a great film,
sadly. While I have no plans to ever view it again, I wouldn’t be abject to
watching it again if it popped on the boob tube.
For Day 11, a Kevin Smith film of ill repute.
