Blade of the 47 Ronin

Thought this was going to be a good martial arts movie but it just didn't get there. Acting was okay but some real corny parts. When you think of martial arts movies, you think of respect and honor. The character Omani was pretty annoying. She didn't do as she was told and lacked discipline. There was a fight scene which was a practice and the fighting was poor. Clearly did not make them look like elite killers. The positive was having Dustin Nguyen and legend Mark Degascos in a movie together. Overall disappointing considering how decent the first one was. Probably should have rewatched the first one.

It's campy, it's cliched, it's corny, and it's fun. The key to watching this movie is to not take anything seriously. It's filled with just about every martial arts trope there is, and that just adds to its charm.

The basic plot (if you want to call it that), is that a magic using "witch" will wipe out all the samurai remaining in the 21st century unless he is killed by a descendant of the 47 ronin. Pretty thin, but it sets up the story for lots of cheesy dialog, and copious amounts of martial arts mayhem. If you sit back and just go with the flow the movie is enjoyable (but not great by any stretch of the imagination), and a fun way to pass a couple of hours.

What happens when you take a decent movie about Japanese lore and try to make it a John Wick, girl power knock-off? This inane piece of garbage where John Wick is actually mentioned. I gave it two stars because the fight scenes were tolerable, unlike the writing, acting and dialogue. This is a horrible grab for views using a popular movie. If you feel the need to watch, just go in knowing that there is nothing really redeeming about it and could be entertaining if you are doing other stuff and only pay half attention to it. There are better things to watch on Netflix if you want a strong female herion.

The acting was horribly distracting. There might have been 1 or 2 good actors, but they couldn't save the plot AT ALL!!! The CGI blood was also bad. Master Shinshiro (I think his name was), is obviously one of the better actors. I'm very upset none of the females were good at acting. The choreography was good but could have been better executed. I didn't watch the other Ronin movie with Reeves, but I hope it was waaay better than this one. I'm trying to figure out how it was in Netflix top ten . I guess if your a lover of fighting in movies, you might enjoy it. The problem wasn't their slow movement, but that they were so slow, it looked like they were acting it out. Very few scenes were executed well. I would never recommend to anyone to watch. EVER!!!

I know the 47 Ronin is not considered to be a good movie; however, I am a fan. While imperfect, there are certain elements of the filmmaking and storytelling that were memorable. This film lacks most, if not all of those elements, and is hardly a sequel to the Keanu Reeves 2013 film. It reminds me of a film styled more after the Wu Assassins movie, than the Reeves story of 47 Masterless Samurai that defend their honor in a battle with evil and magic. This movie has some good elements but it is corny and visually very low budget. The CGI blood is too unrealistic for my taste. The characters too silly. I do like some of the marital arts and I do like some of the stars of the film, particularly the lead female star. I tried to look at this as a stand alone to see if it might fare better, but, sadly, it did not. If you are not a martial arts movie fan I would deduct an additional star.