47 Ronin - Le sabre de la vengeance

The original 2013 film 47 Ronin had astounding visuals but lacked a compelling story. Despite the original film not being a good film I enjoyed it. This film, Blade of the 47 Ronin, has none of those great visuals, and the story is far from gripping. Featured throughout this film is poor amateurish cinematography, uninspired and irrational writing, with poor acting. Teresa Ting's character Onami is the most captivating character in the film, the others for me were forgettable. The stunt team absolutely carried this film, they did a great job with the fight scenes throughout and was the only reason I watched it through. That said, I hated the fake CGI blood and would have rather had no blood at all. This seems like it would have been better as a fully fleshed out 10ish episode series rather than a film sequel.

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.

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.

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.

This should not be a "sequel" at all, it is not worthy in the slightest. 47 Ronin was a great film, this 'sequel' is a disservice. Starship Troopers 2 was a better sequel to the original than this -- and thats not saying much.

Blade is totally uninspiring, boring, not sure why I am still watching. For now its on the "watch a bit more of it later" roster; movies that take me 3 or 4 days to finish. Something to have running while I fall asleep.

Look at it this way, I'm 25 minutes in before I decide "you know what? I'm going to look up the rating in imdb before I continue at this point." Just wanting to make sure I'm on the same page as everyone else. With a 4.7 right now, it appears we are in agreement.