47 RONIN

In eighteenth century Japan, a young half-Japanese half-English boy called Kai is taken in by Lord Asano. Suspected as an outsider, Kai grows up and falls in love with Asano's daughter Mika. The problem is that the evil Lord Kira also wants Mika, and uses a Witch to manipulate Asano into attacking him and therefore forfeiting his life.  Mika must now marry Kira, unless Lord Asano's now leaderless Samurai, joined by Kai, and armed with magical swords, defy their Shogun's orders and take revenge on Kira. 

With the exception of the character of Kai, and the supernatural aspects,  this is the traditional Japanese story of the 47 Ronin which has inspired many a film, book, opera, print and TV show. In this latest big budget Hollywood outing, it is made accessible for a Western audience with the inclusion of the outsider character, Kai.  Sadly, this late inclusion is obviously unnecessary.  The Kai character doesn't really add to the story - the on-screen love story doesn't convince - and the charismatic gravitational pull of the film always seems to be toward Oishi, the chief Ronin.  It is then, Hiroyuki Sanada's film and not Keanu Reeves'.  The emotional search for justice, the deep trauma, the nobility in going outside of the Samurai code and the horrible price paid - that is all the narrative arc of Oishi not Reeves, and maybe reflect not just his better lines, but also his greater acting ability.  I think there is something in the screenwriters actually acknowledging this in a key final scene where it is Oishi and not Kai who holds up a key totem.

I heard about 47 RONIN long before I saw it. It felt like The Hollywood Reporter had been running articles on it for literally years, calling it a troubled production in the same breath as JOHN CARTER and WORLD WAR Z.  The director, Carl Rinsch, had never directed a feature length film before, let alone one budgeted at $170m.  The movie was originally meant to come out in 2012 and then got bumped into 2013, and then it got moved back from Feb 13 to Christmas.  And it turned out Universal Pictures were writing down the losses over a year before it even hit movie screens.  Some blamed the director.  Carl Rinsch hadn't directed a feature film before and, among other things, the entire final battle sequence had to be reshot.

But I don't think the movie is an utter failure. In fact I rather enjoyed it.  You just have to cruise past the Keanu scenes and just watch it for Oishi/Sanada, the lavish costumes and beautiful sets.  I don't think the movie needed the supernatural element, but you can't help but find the Witch's transformations elegant.  And who cares if the final battle had to be reshot? It's amazing! All of which adds up to say that inside this over-long and over-altered film is a leaner more faithful Japanese film waiting to get out. Someone just needs to take to it with FinalCut Pro.

47 RONIN is on global release. It has a running time of 118 minutes and is rated PG-13.

RUSH HOUR 3 - 100% pop-tastic

Brett Ratner is a vulgarian hack director and should be kept in a one-mile exclusion zone from all movie projects that require intelligence and subtlety. But give the man his due: he can direct a stupid, superficial action movie like no other. RUSH HOUR 3 is no exception. Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan reprise their roles as two cops in a culture clash, united in their hatred of triads and their love of....well...each other. You know the score: Tucker is going to dance like Michael Jackson and lech after hot chicks; Jackie Chan is going to do cool martial arts stunts; and we're all gonna go home happy. In this installment we have the added bonus of some rather perceptive gags about the US-Old World culture clash and a funny montage spoofing the buddy cop genre.

Of course, if you want to be all picky, you can find stuff to hate on. Jackie Chan's martial arts stunts may be a bit less extreme in his frail dotage. The whole "Jackie has an evil brother" story is under-written. And what the fuck is Roman Polanski doing in this sub Steve Martin role? But this is all to miss the point. RUSH HOUR 3 does one thing very well. It makes us laugh. And that helps us forget that global debt markets are going down the toilet. So two enthusiastic thumbs-up from me!

RUSH HOUR 3 is on release in Israel, Singapore, Iceland, Sweden, the UK and US. It opens in Egypt, Germany, Hong Kong, Norway, Indonesia, Argentina, South Korea and Japan later in August. It opens in Greece, Brazil, Lithuania, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Australia, Russia and Spain in September and in the Netherlands, Venezuela, France and Belgium in October 2007.

THE PROMISE - More of that high flying mystical Chinese soap opera stuff

The Chinese sure love their cinematography. Few American movies can match the investment movies like THE PROMISE make in their dedication to color and cinematic beauty. Every scene a painting, every character ultra vivid, these movies are incredible to look at. Of course, the price you pay for that is enduring unbelievably corny dialogue and entirely ridiculous story arcs that strain your ability to remain in the cinema as they take place.

Yet THE PROMISE is very much worth watching, particularly if you're a fan of this kind of cinema or just fantasy in general. The characters are all in boldface; the doomed beauty, the brash and conquering general, the embittered villain, the mysterious assassin and most important, the slave who really isn't a slave. In terms of broad narrative, The Promise is actually really good, an epic and grand adventure with characters who have to discover themselves in order to come to terms with the world, others that rise and fall from glory and a resolution to the whole thing that is satisfying without being saccharine.

So the narrative problems don't occur in the broad story arc. They are credulity straining loose ends left unanswered that nag and annoy the viewer (and likely destroy the movie for most of the audience to be honest). The rationale of a certain goddess and her interferance is never explained, so unlike Greek mythology where you get a picture of the gods as petty and self interested, here you have a meddlesome goddess working to no particular purpose. Then the storytellers forget to explain how our villain is able to destroy a race of superbeings or why he is so unable to defeat a merely human general, and their explanation of his general bitterness is far from acceptable. One more major problem occurs in the first half hour of the movie, an entirely unrealistic war scene with iffy graphics and the worst potrayal of war strategy and battle I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in a movie. Oh and why on earth or any other world would a general go face his enemy without putting on his (near mythical) armor first? This movie has no shortage of flaws.

Despite these problems though, I find myself quite enamored of The Promise, particularly in retrospect. Part of the reason for that is that the movie picks up as it goes along, becoming more intriguing with the introduction of the assassin character and the development of the protagonist's back story (plot holes and all). There is also far humor in the latter half of the movie than at the beginning, where it takes itself too seriously. If you're the kind of movie viewer who is able to relax into a movie and look past its flaws, The Promise has much to offer. Aside of the gorgeous cinematography, the acting is top notch with wonderfully evocative actors. For a fantasy geek (my name is Flint and I am a fantasy geek), some of the ideas within it are totally thrilling and impossible to let go off when you leave the cinema. That's the Promise, flawed but entertaining. It can by no means be called a good movie but it isn't all bad.

THE PROMISE was released in China last Christmas and played Berlin 2006. It is currently on release in Germany, Austria and the US. I do not know of a release date for the UK or Aus.