f13.net

Keanu Reeves asian sword and sorcery flick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8cKdDkkIYY

First thought: Nice to see skeleton tattoo guy getting work.

Second thought: Fucking be there.

Where's his Cardboard Tube ?

God damn it... Keanu? In another movie that I want to see and will probably like? Fuck what is with this guy?

I never disliked Keanu Reeves. He ain't high art, but he's good for entertainment.

Yeah, as boring and borderline terrible his acting is... I can't think of a single movie that was bad because of him.

So they've taken the 47 Ronin story and pulled a 300 on it (essentially taking an actual historical event and then adding supernatural elements to it). The character that Keanu Reeves plays is also completely made up, presumably because just having a cast of Japanese people would be hard to market.

Eh, casting a part Asian guy as a part Asian character, and not putting him in yellowface, qualifies as progress IMO.

Kinda, I guess. I look forward to some studio in Japan responding by making a movie about the Battle of the Alamo and creating a new character so they can have one of their actors star in it. Maybe they can throw some mechs and tentacles in there somewhere also for style.

Yeah, I can't wait for the day when Japan starts remaking westerns.

Dude acts with his hair.

Sam Bowie/Santa Anna mech knife fight? I'd see it.

No...no he isn't  :ye_gods:

This looks fun, like in a "pay for one movie, watch this one for free" kinda way.

Sounds better than any actual Alamo movie not counting Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - and no less accurate.

Probably true. I guess my main objection to 47 Ronin is that it's another one of those creatively bankrupt Hollywood movies. Not only does it really seem to want to be 300, but it's also one of those movies where they feel the need to use the name of an established story, because even if it carries only the tiniest relation to the source material (I'm guessing in this case the main theme of the story isn't even intact since it's such a cultural thing), the studio execs are too terrified to actually create an original IP. They could have just made this "Keanu Reeves and some Samurai go fight stuff".

Wait, how does it want to be 300?

Taking a historical event which has more or less entered into legend and giving it supernatural elements and stylistically making even a lot of the human enemies look inhuman. That person/thing Keanu is shown fighting early on in the trailer looks very 300 inspired for instance.

Velorath has pretty much laid-out my own stance as well.  I heard they were making 47 Ronin and was like, "yah, awesome!"  Then I saw this was what it became.  /sigh.

I'll watch it eventually, but not in theaters.  I certainly am not going to watch it for the story of "White guy has to help Asians in this culture-deep story so we have something marketable!"  Shit was tired with The Last Samurai.

Thanks for clarifying. When I think of 300 I just mostly think of Snyder's overuse of slowmo and all that schlock. The supernatural additions don't bother me.

As for the thing that he's fighting (I'm guess a stylized oni?), I actually immediately thought of some of the creature work from LOTR/The Hobbit.

This looks way the hell more entertaining than any movie about the actual 47 Ronin story possibly could be.  Besides, 13 Assasines already basically did that story, but much better.

Looks to be its own movie with its own unique IP.  I wouldn't get to hung up on the movie title.

Even just taking it as it's own thing, that trailer isn't selling me on this movie. I can't even get an idea of what the story is beyond: Ronin need Keanu's help to fight some people for some reason, 47 stood against many, pretty shots of scenery, lady turns into horrible CG dragon. The acting doesn't look good, the special effects don't look good, the story appears incoherent, the release date has been pushed back multiple times from it's original November 2012 scheduled release, and the movie is rumored to have blown past its $175 million budget. Everything about this movie screams box office disaster.

I think its unfare to judge the story as being 'incoherent' from a trailer.  You haven't seen the movie yet, you have no idea how coherent it possibly could be.  A trailer is just a mashup of scenes to give you a basic jist of it (and I'm happy they kept the overall story mostly vague, as I hate trailers that give everything away).  If it seems incoherent, thats the fault of the trailers editor, not the movies scriptwriter.  CG and acting looked fine to me, but I will admit they seem to lean towards the shoddy end of things.

Having said all that, you're correct that all the information available about the production of this movie points to it being a massive bomb that's probably horrible.  The trailer was fun and I liked the looks of it, but am fully willing to admit signs point to it actually being bad.

Keeanu is a half-breed exile, joins pirates in underground fighting tourney, finds out his homeland was taken over by eeeeevil army, bands together a group of the remaining survivors to take it back, kills dragon.

The trailer was NOT complicated.

I imagine this will do well at the box office.  300 meets the Last Samurai (not really... but that's the image it conjured in my mind).

And yet you got a few things wrong there.

joins/enslaved by pirates.   The minor details are besides the point, you can easily get the jist of the plot.

If not, I'm sure Keanu's incredible acting will drive the story.  :why_so_serious:

I predict that this movie may provide me with a new Keanu impersonation that I can poorly do (my current one if from Speed).

That being said, this will bring me to the theater.

Keanu from Point Break is best Keanu.

I always fall back on "and I'm the Duke of Ted!" myself.

Keanu being Keanu is the only Keanu.

Isn't that what I said?

wiki says the original release date was November 2012.  I wonder what happened?

I'm a simple guy.  Rinko Kikuchi as an evil fire-wielding green dragon sorceress is all I need.  Signmeup.

I'm in. Almost any Keanu is watchable Keanu. And the actual story of the 47 is kinda badass on its own, so I'll definitely watch a tweaked-out version.

And no, this isn't Last Samurai. At least Keanu is part Asian.

(http://www.joblo.com/newsimages1/47-ronin-rinko-kikuchi-poster.jpg)

Cool eyes.

It's Heterochromia, it's a mutation actually, rather a groovy mutation.

In her case, it's for the movie.

Honestly, I didnt even notice the eyes at first.  Had to get past the inverted cleavage.

I see what you are doing... 

Your 'nerd' is showing.

More than most realise.

He's wearing a kilt right now.

Woah.

Surely by being a vessel of higher-level thetans Tom Cruise is actually more Asian than any Asian?

Uhh like, this just came out.  Anyone see?  Kind of a skewed reception on RT, critics hated it and viewers say it's pretty watchable.  Probably worth a matinee when there's nothing else to do?

It should have been called Sucker Punch 2: No Stripper Clothes, or Girls. Not that the plot had anything to do with Sucker Punch, but it was an even deeper exercise in effects over substance. None of the actors were bad, there was just nothing there for them. If you're in the mood for a long CG demo reel without the aspirations of a Micheal Bay movie you're in luck.

It would have been better for them to have dropped the 47 Ronin name or to have used the fucking story.

Just saw it.  Could've been good if they'd taken queues from Crouching Tiger, Hero, etc.  As such, the movie felt contrived and artistically flat, though adequately whimsical.

That's not a skewed reception. There are very few movies that aren't fairly watchable to a 55-65% portion of the audience who leaves ratings on RT. Chances are, if you go to the theater and make the decision to watch 47 Ronin rather than (an actual good movie like) American Hustle or Wolf of Wall Street, you were probably in the market for exactly the kind of bland, mindless spectacle that 47 Ronin served up to you and thus aren't likely to leave too disappointed.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to point out that films about robots or ninjas fighting don't need hipster contrivances such as plot and characters.

So why isn't this a summer movie?

Barring those things they do however need lots of action.  By all accounts this film has none of the above.

Hence the contrivance I spoke of.  There is a good amount of sporadic action, but it lacks gravitas.  The ending also felt underproduced;  "7 Samurai" had more action in that regard.
If we're gonna compare to Pacific Rim, PR didnt pull a lot of punches really.  GdT wants fanciful sci-fi, he gives it.  This movie however felt like the producers went "meh, we dont need to make that much of a statement."  When in fact they did.

All they really had to do was a live-action 'anime' version of the story and it would've been well-received minimally in Japan, but they failed at that likely trying to appease Western audiences... who in turn notice the fact the movie feels way too half-n-half.

Keanu?  Didn't lose enough weight for the film and was made to look much too old.  As much of a badass as he was, I didn't feel like he came across as a true Tengu assassin.  Contrast him with someone like Rain from 'Ninja Assassin' and you see what I mean.  Really though, there's no excuse for him not being in proper shape for the film.

I enjoyed it pretty much the movie I expected it to be effects were good and it was pretty well done overall.