Movie # 4 - 47 Ronin 3D

47 Ronin is set in ancient feudal Japan, starring an entirely Japanese cast to tell the (loosely) based on a true story tale of the 47 Ronin (samurais with no masters), except for the fact that they have thrown in Keanu Reeves to play an outcast wannabe samurai who leads a band of former samurai to avenge the death of their former master. The tale of the 47 Ronin is a famous one in Japan that has been told in many different ways over time.  Never before though, I suspect, has it been told in English starring the biggest "dude" in America as an honourable, graceful Samurai!

The movie begins with a young boy running from an unseen threat and falling into a creek where he is saved by Lord Asano when his leader of his guards, Oishi, would have killed the boy.  Asano has apparently seen something special in the boy, who we raises in his village and allows to grow up with his daughter Mika.  Switch to modern day and Kai (Keanu) is a tolerated outcast as the samurai all think he is half-demon, but Asano's protection keeps him around, teaches him sword play and there is a hint of a romance with Mika.  Asano's village is about to receive a visit from the almighty Shogun (the ruler of the whole land) and Kai spots a strange wolf while out on a hunt with Asano and the guard to rid the village of a killer beast.  The wolf turns out to be a witch spying for Lord Kira, an ambitious young lord who wants to expand his empire.

During the visit to Ako by the Shogun and Lord Kira, we see Kai's fighting skills in action when he takes the place of Asano's fighter who has been poisoned by the witch.  But that is just a diversion as the real target is for the witch to cast a spell over Asano which causes him to try to attack Kira.  When discovered, Asano is sentenced to death by the Shogun, who allows him to commit seppaku (also known as hara-kiri: a ritual suicide which restores honour).  The samurai are disbanded, becoming ronin, and forbidden to seek revenge for their master. Lord Kira is appointed as Ako's new Lord and he is betrothed to marry Mika in 12 months' time.  Oishi is thrown in a pit to break his spirit and Kai is sold into slavery.  Everything has gone wrong, but on Oishi's release he is determined to break the decree and get revenge on Lord Kira.  He assembles the ronin and seeks out Kai who he knows will help save Mika from her fate.

The movie continues at a good pace as the ronin set out on their mission.  The plot is pretty senseless (why doesn't Kira just go for the Shogun if he is so ambitious and powerful via his witch?, who are the demons who raised Kai?, why does the Shogun forbid the ronin to seek revenge if he thinks Asano was guilty of the crime - there would be nothing to avenge?, how do many of the ronin escape the witch's clutches at the first clash?) but the action scenes are reasonably good with the sword fights and the final battle is suitably epic.  The witch (played by Rinko Kikuchi from Pacific Rim and Babel) is quite menacing but a little over the top in her venom.  However a good performance by Hiroyuki Sanada (who recently played the Japanese guard in The Railway Man) as Oishi is offset by the performance by Keanu Reeves.  He tries to bring the required melancholy of a half-breed outcast whose love can never be officially approved, but can't shake off his Californian dude mannerisms to convincingly play an awesome samurai and romantic leading man.  Keanu needs a walking coach to change his walk!

There is a large component of fantasy elements brought to this version of the tale which put a different twist on the usual samurai film, which could be seen as a bit silly.  But if you like your blockbusters fun and dumb, you won't mind.  As a fan of samurai films who doesn't mind a bit of silliness, I would have given this three stars but I'm subtracting 1/2 a star for the fact that everyone speaks in English.  This would have been way more convincing if spoken in Japanese with subtitles.  So it's a 2.5 stars out of 5 for this one.

2013 - Year in Review

What a big year for movies 2013 was.  Some of the biggest box office returns of all time were achieved and the number of films released in 3D increased again, but not only that, there were a large number of quality films released.  It has been very tough doing my 2013 best/worst list, because there were a lot of what I would say are 4 star films, and not a lot of terrible movies.
 
Movie of the Year: Sharknado
 
Just kidding!  While Sharknado was an extremely entertaining movie, being one of the most hilarious things you can watch for continuity and cheesy dialogue, it wasn't actually good.
 
Here are my real Top 10 Movies seen in 2013:

1. Gravity 3D. The most cinematic film of the year.
2. This is the End.  Hands down best comedy, I wanted to watch it again that night! Will be extremely quotable after repeat watches.
3. Pacific Rim 3D.  Giant robots vs giant monsters. That is all.
4. Mystery Road. Beautifully filmed, powerhouse Aussie film.
5. Django Unchained. Brutal, funny, Christoph Waltz.
6. The Square. Essential eye opening documentary about the power of protest.  Now up for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
7. World War Z.  The most tense film of the year. Yep more than Gravity.  I repeat: not a zombie movie.
8. Iron Man 3. A blockbuster with dialogue and humour equally as good as the action.  Best twist of the year!  There's a reason this has moved to the 5th highest grossing film ever (not adjusted for inflation).
9. The Way Way Back. Gentle funny coming of age with a difference.
10. Only Lovers Left Alive.  A sexy mood piece of incredible style and a totally different take on the vampire genre.
11. Kon-Tiki.  A true story of an incredible adventure, told grippingly.

OK I have had to make it 11.  Sorry! I could not decide between those last 2 spots!

Most Disappointing/Worst
1. Hyde Park on Hudson. Distasteful topic and strange humour, lifted somewhat by the King and Queen of England.
2. Kick Ass 2.  Take the best thing about the first movie (Hit Girl swearing and killing people) and drastically cut that back and focus on other characters.  Darker is not always better!
3. Man of Steel.  Was going pretty well, if a little serious, until Zack Snyder just took the ending way over the top in destruction and darkness.  Supes saves earth but kills thousands of people in the meantime?
4. We're the Millers.  A comedy that was rarely funny but often predictable.
5. Lords of Salem.  For some reason Rob Zombie has gone from making weird, smart horror movies to making senseless, dull, stupid ending movies that are barely scary.

Great Acting
These were the standout performances for me this year:

• Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle
• Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook
• Liam James in The Way Way Back
• Sam Rockwell in the Way Way Back
• Steve Carell in the Way Way Back
• Aaron Pedersen in every scene of Mystery Road
• Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained
• Tom Hiddleston in Only Lovers left Alive and Thor: The Dark World
• Surat Sharma as Pi in Life of Pi
• Naomi Watts went through the wringer on The Impossible

Worst Acting
Everyone in Pacific Rim, especially the "Australians".  Although to be fair it's probably the script and not entirely the actors' fault.

Favourite moment:
As per last year, my favourite film moments appeared in Marvel films.  The first is the reveal of the twist in Iron Man 3 and the second was Kat Dennings' exclamation of "Hey it's miaow miaow" in Thor: the Dark World (an in joke from the first film where she can't pronounce Mjolnir, Thor's hammer).

If you agree or disagree with these lists, please let me know - I love to hear what others think.  You can leave a comment below with your name or Anonymous if you prefer.

Australian Box Office Top 20
All stats below are courtesy of Box Office Mojo website
Interesting stats I've picked out of the Box Office list:

• Tom Cruise's 2 movies can't get higher than #31 and #32.  Poor Tom is not the box office draw he used to be.
• The Hobbit did incredibly well at #8 given it was only out for 5 days in the year.
• Dr Who made #99 for a 'one day only' movie!
• There were some unexpected monetary flops - Lone Ranger only hit #30, Pacific Rim #42 (beaten by Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa at #35!!!), Will Smith's vanity project After Earth #68, One Direction vanity doco #81, Kick-Ass 2 #93, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone #85.
• Movie version of Stephanie Myer's adult novel The Host did not benefit from the Twilight fanbase - it only got to #88.
• It was not a good year for comedies that in previous years would have hit big - films from Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell, Vince Vaughan, Melissa McCarthy were not as funny as the trailers indicated and audiences stayed away. Anchorman 2 excepted which hit #23 off a week and a half of box office in 2013.
• Kid flicks, sequels, franchises and book conversions were the only real way to make money.  Gravity at #12, Django Unchained at #13, Now you See Me #16 and The Heat #22 were the highest ranked original concepts.

Rank	Movie Title	Distributor	Gross	Release
1	Iron Man 3	Disney	$36,164,486	4/25
2	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	Roadshow	$33,559,179	11/21
3	Despicable Me 2	UPI	$32,712,318	6/20
4	Life of Pi	Fox	$28,420,882	1/3
5	The Great Gatsby (2013)	Roadshow	$25,282,416	5/30
6	Fast & Furious 6	UPI	$24,693,368	6/6
7	The Croods	Fox	$23,752,747	3/28
8	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	WB	$23,059,265	12/26
9	Man of Steel	WB	$22,342,258	6/27
10	Monsters University	Disney	$21,747,029	6/20
11	Thor: The Dark World	Disney	$20,494,942	10/31
12	The Hangover Part III	WB	$19,150,236	5/23
13	Gravity	WB	$18,787,616	10/3
14	Django Unchained	Sony	$16,521,964	1/24
15	World War Z	PPI	$16,421,768	6/20
16	Now You See Me	E1	$16,163,376	8/8
17	Oz The Great and Powerful	Disney	$15,877,141	3/7
18	Star Trek Into Darkness	PPI	$14,866,428	5/9
19	The Wolverine	Fox	$14,391,290	7/25
20	Silver Linings Playbook	Roadshow	$14,272,799	1/31

Full list is here: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/australia/yearly/

Global Box Office 2013
The world box office was very similar to Australia.  Interestingly the charts are dominated by movies released recently and not the big US summer tentpole movies.  Congratulations to Baz Luhrman for getting The Great Gatsby at #20 worldwide!  Several movies were much more popular overseas than in America (the domestic column) with Pacific Rim being a clear standout - obviously the Asian audience boosted this a lot after barely making $100million in the US.

Rank	Title (click to view)	Studio* FilterA24 BV CBS FD Focus Fox FoxS LG/S LGF ORF Par. RAtt. RCR Rela. SGem Sony SPC TriS Uni. W/Dim. WB WB (NL) Wein. ALL	Worldwide	Domestic / %		Overseas / %
1	Iron Man 3	BV	$1,215.4	$409.0	33.7%	$806.4	66.3%
2	Despicable Me 2	Uni.	$921.2	$368.0	39.9%	$553.2	60.1%
3	The Hunger Games: Catching Fire	LGF	$832.8	$409.4	49.2%	$423.4	50.8%
4	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$788.7	$238.7	30.3%	$550.0	69.7%
5	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	WB	$761.2	$234.2	30.8%	$527.0	69.2%
6	Monsters University	BV	$743.6	$268.5	36.1%	$475.1	63.9%
7	Gravity	WB	$670.3	$255.8	38.2%	$414.5	61.8%
8	Man of Steel	WB	$668.0	$291.0	43.6%	$377.0	56.4%
9	Frozen	BV	$644.7	$302.6	46.9%	$342.1	53.1%
10	Thor: The Dark World	BV	$630.6	$203.6	32.3%	$427.0	67.7%
11	The Croods	Fox	$587.2	$187.2	31.9%	$400.0	68.1%
12	World War Z	Par.	$540.0	$202.4	37.5%	$337.6	62.5%
13	Oz The Great and Powerful	BV	$493.3	$234.9	47.6%	$258.4	52.4%
14	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$467.4	$228.8	49.0%	$238.6	51.0%
15	The Wolverine	Fox	$414.8	$132.6	32.0%	$282.3	68.0%
16	Pacific Rim	WB	$411.0	$101.8	24.8%	$309.2	75.2%
17	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	Par.	$375.7	$122.5	32.6%	$253.2	67.4%
18	The Hangover Part III	WB	$362.0	$112.2	31.0%	$249.8	69.0%
19	Now You See Me	LG/S	$351.7	$117.7	33.5%	$234.0	66.5%
20	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$351.0	$144.8	41.3%	$206.2	58.7%