Movie rant time: 47 Ronin

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SirMustapha
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Movie rant time: 47 Ronin

Post by SirMustapha » Sun Feb 09, 2014 5:52 pm

HERE BE SPOILERS!... but if you have good taste, you won't have a problem with that.

My girlfriend has a kinda annoying habit when choosing films: she relies on the synopsis alone, instead of reading a little bit about it beforehand.

Yesterday, we decided to visit a shopping mall to try to flee from the brutal heatwave that's been punishing our city for the last few weeks. So, she wanted to go to the cinema, and I voted in favour. When we saw the list of films, she got interested in 47 Ronin, of which neither of us had heard much. But since she loves Japanese culture, she was interested. I was only making jokes that it was going to be another copy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But since the other options didn't seem to be much better, I was fine with it.

The first problem: the film was only available in 3D. For me, of course, it means watching the film twice (I hate wearing glasses, and the 3D effects are either unnoticeable or obnoxious). But only after buying the tickets we went to see the poster, and then we saw problem number 2: Keanu Reeves.

But anyway, we had already bought the tickets. So, we went with it. Now, all times I watched a 3D film, the only case I managed to watch more than 50% of it with glasses on was Despicable Me 2. In this case, I really tried to get along with it. But only after a few minutes, I realised that the only thing I couldn't see very well with out the glasses were the subtitles. Yes, the subtitles had the most noticeable 3D effect.
Spoiler
I was relieved to find Isis hated the movie about as much as I did. I never felt films such as this could be physically harmful to sit through, but there you go. If you considered watching the film, please, don't do so. You know, the biggest problem isn't even Keanu Reeves; as much as you may detest his acting, the film was so bad that not even he could spoil it further. I didn't even think he was bad, in fact. The problem is simply that there had to be a white guy in the movie. It could have been anyone else, it would have sucked just as much. But as a Cracked article said once, if you're going to make a movie about a foreign culture and you don't have a white person as your hero, nobody will finance your movie. That's how Hollywood rolls, and they can fuck themselves.
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Re: Movie rant time: 47 Ronin

Post by Gulliver63 » Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:50 pm

I have to agree on the Keanu Reeves rant. Even though I liked him tremendously in the "Bill and Ted's" movies, I could never figure out how he got cast into "Bram Stroker's Dracula" with Anthony Hopkins. I kept thinking to myself, "Really? There where no British actors available that could have done that part?" His London accent was weak to say the least. Hollywood needs to get away from this "shake and bake" cooking formula for films and go back to creating art through movies.

Heatwave...amazing how relative things are. When it gets up around 0 C lately I find myself saying, "Woo-hoo." So far, this is the 4th worst winter for snow on record, and really a cold one. There's gotta be a happy medium for both of us.
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Re: Movie rant time: 47 Ronin

Post by c_nordlander » Mon Feb 10, 2014 12:39 am

Wow. This film sounds like everything I expected it to be. But at least you got a fun rant out of it... right?

And I'd like to second that bit about Hollywood having to stick a white Anglo-Saxon in every film set in a foreign culture. It feels so... pandering. Like, if I go to see a film set in mediaeval Japan or what have you, why can't I get a Japanese person as the hero? I can identify with people even if they aren't my exact skin tone or cultural background!

I guess having the protagonist be mixed race is a bit less awful, but still, is it really necessary? Was the same guy in the original "47 Ronin" a halfbreed? I don't know, I walked out when they cast me as Ori instead of Yoshi.
Last edited by c_nordlander on Fri Feb 21, 2014 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Movie rant time: 47 Ronin

Post by Gulliver63 » Mon Feb 10, 2014 1:29 am

I agree totally Chris, especially when an Anlgo (a giajin, a barbarian) would have a difficult time fitting into such a society.

And a half-breed...hmmm...didn't they do that with "Kung Fu" in the 70's?
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