But of course they did. Has an American studio every made a big budget movie without an American/western star? Without Reeves, the rest of the cast are pretty much unknown to American audiences.
Sure: Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings…
What they never do is make a big budget movie with no selling point. That can be a famous star, a famous director, a well-known story, a superhero franchise, anything. Since the 47 Samurai is not a well-known story outside of Japan, they had to go with something; unfortunately, it seems as though that something wasn’t a famous director (and thus, presumably, a capable one).
I see your point that, in your examples, the book was the hook, but despite that, Hunger Games wasn’t a big budget film, Harry Potter had Alan Rickman, Richard Harris, John Hurt, Maggie Smith, John Cleese et al, and the Rings movies were filled with famous actors.
Reeves isn’t a huge star, but it would have been unprecedented for an American studio to spend 225 million on a film with mostly Japanese actors unknown in the States. To do that, they should have spent 20 million, left out all the supernatural crap and CGI, and followed the original source material.
I think the better question is WHY would an American studio make an American movie without any Americans in it? The choices weren’t “make 47 Ronin with Reeves and 46 Asian guys” versus “make 47 Ronin with 47 Asian guys,” it was “sign Reeves to 47 Ronin and then find 46 Asian guys to fill out the cast” versus “don’t make the movie.”
Okay, see, now I’m interested in the movie. Mixed messages, dude.
Hopefully because we’re at a point where we can identify with people outside our own nationality.
But when that happens, does the carpet match the - eh, nevermind.
The most intriguing to me thing is that the AV Club gave it a B, and I’m usually in synch with their reviews.
I recommend everyone read that wiki page in the OP on the true story of the 47 Ronin.
I was vaguely familiar with this story, but the details are awesome. The youngest was 15. One of them married the daughter of the builder of the house they were attacking so they could have the plans. (I’m thinking this was like Mr. Brady’s plans, all rolled up in a tube in the pre-internet days.) They spent years waiting for their victims guard to be lowered and all that time they acted like depraved drunks to throw off suspicion.
During the attack they warned the neighbors not to worry, and they cooperated since they hated their target. After the attack they made sure to put out all the candles in the house so they wouldn’t start a fire.
Classy move, that.
A modern day version of this needs to be told. With no CGI.
So the 46 guys (and the villain) who aren’t Reeves don’t count?
A bunch of extras and the bad guy? I can’t imagine why people pushing for increased minority actors in leading roles would not be satisfied with that.
I read somewhere (io9?) that Keanu’s part was originally very small, but executives, annoyed that they had spent so much money on him, demanded he be given a bigger role. So if his scenes seem shoehorned in, that’s because they were. No idea if this is true, sorry no cite but my memory.
Sure they do. But Reeves shouldn’t have to be a lead in this type of movie for studios to back it up.
Had the budget been reduced, and the story been closer to the real event, it would’ve been a better film overall.
The original poster may be interested in a website called Rotten Tomatoes which compiles reviews by people who write about film for a living and creates ratings of films based on these reviews. Checking “47 Ronin” at the site, it has a rating of 11% (41 bad reviews and 5 good reviews). I’m sure the original poster would not have wasted the money or the time going to see this well-established turkey in lieu of all of the other highly regarded films currently in theaters unless he or she had already seen all of those highly acclaimed films and wanted to see a terrible film as a change of pace and then complain about how awful it was.
Every review I’ve read (admittedly, this is only like 3 or 4) goes to great lengths to point out that Reeves isn’t the lead.
All of these people shitting on a movie just because Keanu is in it are forgetting about The Matrix (which had the same kind of shitting on it ahead of its release.) Doesn’t mean this movie isn’t terrible, but the whole “I knew it was shit when I saw Keanu was attached” idea is pretty dumb. He’s done plenty of good work. *Contstantine *has a lot of fans and A Scanner Darkly was pretty decent. I know I’m going back several years but he doesn’t have the number of acting credits over the last five years that you might assume.
He’s more or less a co-lead (borderline supporting actor) to Hiroyuki Sanada.
Googling around about this film led me to some sites that discussed how much Reeves made from the Matrix trilogy. There isn’t an exact number out there, but it’s over $200 million, maybe over $250 million. :eek:
OP here.
I did fail to check any reviews of the movie, it was spur of the moment kinda thing. Buddy and I were looking for something to do other than going to a bar. We both know the story and did not know that Keanu Reeves was the star.
I was not expecting an Academy Award winner type flick, it being a Hollywood re-telling of a very Japanese story. I knew they were going to screw it up a bit, Hollywood being what it is. The original story has themes that, to me, should resonate with American audiences, honor, self sacrifice and revenge served so cold it is frozen. Throw in some flashy sword play, add some explanatory notes, the obligatory Western Actor and wham bam thank you Maam, we have a good time on a Saturday Night.
But no, they went all Harry Potter and really bad CGI. It would have been better if at some point Keanu emptied a pistol into the air while screaming, worlds better.
Capt
I’m not sure how big it was, but* Letters from Iwo Jima* may qualify–it was a well-received Clint Eastwood film.
ETA: Wiki says the budget was only $19 million.
It is worse than that, that 11% comes from all reviewers, that includes a few iffy ones. When one looks at the list with “Top Critics”, from the largest newspapers and movie orgs, the number of reviews in favor of the movie is 0.
““47 Ronin” would have been more fun if it kept swinging its sword instead of falling on it.” - Newsday