Blade Of The 47 Ronin

Box office bombs, we see them every single year. Films that film studios were hoping to make some money at the box office, but ends up loosing a lot of cash. There are of course several different reasons why some films fail. Some of them might just be terrible, or it could be that the audience are not interested in certain films because of the plot or the characters. I personally don´t dislike box office bombs very often, there are a few exceptions of course where i can understand why the film bombed at the box office. How many of you remember the 2015 sci fi action film Jupiter Ascending? Not that many of you? I can understand why. This film have actors such as Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean and you even have English actor Eddie Redmayne here. I saw this film in the theatre, and i still remember hos disappointed i was. Since this film is directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, we both know that they directed all 4 Matrix films. You would think that they might have made another sci fi epic with Jupiter Ascending, but it is just a bad sci fi film. The action scenes are not that effective, and you honestly don´t care about the characters. On a budget somewhere around 200 million dollars, the film only made over 180 million dollars at the box office. If you think about these numbers and you know they need to make at least around 500 million dollars to make any kind of profit ( promoting the film cost a lot of money as well ), you realise that directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski must have had a rough time that year. Even if Jupiter Ascending did sell over 11 million Blu Ray copies in America, that is still very far away from a profit. If you have not seen the film, i suggest you watch The Matrix instead. How many of you remember the samurai action film 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves released in 2013? This film was a massive box office bomb, and on a budget somewhere around 200 million dollars, the film only made over 150 million dollars at the box office. I actually enjoy this film, even if it was a really big box office bomb. I never would have suspected that we would get a sequel to this film, conisdering how much money the first film lost. But here we are with a sequel called Blade Of The 47 Ronin, where we see legendary action star Mark Dacascos instead of Keanu Reeves this time. 9 years after the first film came out, is this sequel better than i would have expected, or should you avoid Blade Of The 47 Ronin and watch the first film instead?

An evil witch named Yurei ( Dan Southworth ), whose ancestor was slain by one of the 47 Ronin, has surfaced in a modern world Budapest determined to have his revenge. Yurei seeks to completely destroy all samurai ny uniting both halves of the powerful Tengu Sword. A prophecy claims only a descendant of the original 47 Ronin can wield the blade and defeat the great evil.

Knowing that this sequel could have easily been made as a rip off from the first film, i have to say that this sequel is quite different from 47 Ronin. First of all have you ever seen Japanese samurai´s in the streets of Budapest? I love it when they dare to do something different and don´t make a sequel exactly the same as the original film, and that is exactly what they did here. Does this mean that this is a better film than 47 Ronin? No, i still prefer the original film. But let´s go through some of the details that i appreciate about Blade Of The 47 Ronin. First of all how often do you see samurai battles between ninja´s that reminds you of the 80´s in 2022? I actually feel that the samurai battle scenes are fun to watch, because they remind me a lot of VHS video violence at the local rental store, where some fun cheesy VHS titles didn´t hold back on the violence. We also get martial art fighting scenes in Blade Of The 47 Ronin, which is always welcome. The tone of this film feels like they were inspired of action films of the 80´s, since some of the dialogue scenes feels like something out of Big Trouble In Little China with Kurt Russel. Not that this film will ever even be close as good as that cult film, but i appreciate that they took the time to make their own tribute to martial art films of the 80´s. I especially enjoy the subway train scenes, where plenty of samurai´s fight against a lot of ninjas. How is the acting in this film? The best acting comes from legendary martial art action actor Mark Dacascos as the character Lord Shinshiro. Not only is Mark charming in this role, but he´s actually the most interesting character as well. Actress Anna Akana as the lead character Luna starts off a bit annoying, but change her behavior after a while and becomes more entertaining. Teresa Ting as the character Onami is cool, great at fighting and not shy at all. So anything negative to say? You honestly don´t care about the plot while this film tries to tell a story that is supposed to be deep, but doesn´t do a very good job with that. So my advice is just to enjoy all the martial art scenes instead, and don´t focus on the plot. Director Ron Yuan ( mostly known for being an actor in TV series Marco Polo ) deliver a martial art action film that will most likely please fans who have missed ninja films of the 80´s, and i think he have done a good job to bring back this genre to the big screen. Blade Of The 47 Ronin is definetely made for an audience who appreciate martial arts, and if you happen to be a fan of similar films, i have a feeling you are going to have a good time.

Rating: DDD