47 Ronin (1962)

People are voting emotionally.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I first saw Chushingara in 1972 in Boulder, Colorado on the CU campus. I racked up 3 additional viewings in the next couple of years, one at Boston's Park Square Cinema, long gone and lamented. The Park Square often showed Japanese films and I saw the Samurai Trilogy there as well as some of the other classics. I've since seen in again in theaters and now have the video. I was struck, reading some of the other viewer comments, by how many people felt exactly as I did, remembering each viewing as though it were a superb meal to be savored the rest of our lives, rather than simply "seeing a great film". The other comments articulate the reasons why quite well, but I'll add my two cents. Aside from being perhaps the most gorgeous film ever made, its beauty is integral to the psychological mood of heroism intensified by each moment's transience and each life's fragility. The great trial and seppuku scene, framed by that stunningly beautiful music and the equally intense cherry blossoms, stands as one of the most concise statements of life's tragic beauty as well, of course, as the soul of Bushido. The course of action pursued by Chamberlain Oishi creates the emotional hook and the humorous scenes, highlighted by Toshiro Mifune's wonderful character, keep things barreling along. In the end, though, it is the whole package - the stunning sets, many of them modeled fairly closely on classic Japanese woodcuts; the brilliant acting and direction; the loving detail of so many aspects of Japanese culture; the unfolding of justice; the close relationships and their exacting depiction; the revelation of a code that is so alien to anything in contemporary western life; the self-conscious gamble to make this film a cultural monument that breathes life; and of course, the final battle - wow! - certainly one of the greatest movies ever made. It is a shame that it is not more accessible on the large screen - the bigger the better - but as it sustains multiple viewings, see it on video anyway - it's worth it and you can always watch it again.

I know this movie has a good reputation in the world of movie cinema, a story about a young lord who attempts to combat the corruption to the Shogunate, only to be placed in an impossible conflict of duties. To obey the Shogun, they must follow orders, but to be loyal to their master, they must revenge his untimely death. I wanted to watch this film for the fact that a lot of well-known actors and actresses from Japan were in it including Toshiro Mifune, Yosuke Natsuki, Eisei Amamoto, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kenji Sahara, Tadao Takashima, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Takeshi Shimura, Yuriko Hoshi, Kumi Mizuno, Yumi Shirakawa and Mie Hama. However, this film was difficult to follow and comprehend due to the numerous appearances of its many characters (some on screen for only 10 seconds). This results in the plot and relevance of the story challenging to understand.Also, this movie dragged on and, even though it's a drama, it would have been nice to see some light humor and spirit. The saving grace of the film was Akira Ifukube's music score, especially the palace invasion music towards the climax of the film. The action was great and the sceneries and artwork were also superb. But overall, a pretty dreary movie.Grade D+

I consider this to be the greatest almost-unknown film of all time. I haven't seen it in 40 years, yet I can still remember scenes from it!It played in a theater in Berkeley CA for 1 or 2 years straight, around 1964, and I saw it twice at that theater.The story is based on a classic Japanese legend, so that there are many different movie versions - but as far as I've heard, this is the best.I have no idea where to find a vhs or dvd copy at this time... perhaps someone reading this knows.

I read the old play in an Asian History class in college some quarter-century ago, so I don't remember a lot of the "classic" plot. So I came to this movie almost cold, only knowing that there were 47 masterless samurai bound to avenge their master. This no doubt colored my view of the pacing, which to my mind took a very long time to get to the point where the young Daimyo Asano was provoked into his fatal breach of protocol.I thought that the villain, Lord Kino, was painted awfully black, a shameless greedhead and womanizer and a coward to boot, as well as playing petty personal politics. Since it had been so long since I read the play, I don't know whether the traditional portrayal of this character is quite as one-sided as here, or whether he is traditionally portrayed as believing himself to have been morally in the right, rather than merely self-serving. Portraying Kino as believing he was himself an honorable man would have made the young Daimyo's choice between defending his personal honor, and violating formal protocol, more poignant. Thus the ronin's own dilemma would have not only been between conflicting expectations of traditional duty, but a question of which course of action would be Doing the Right Thing in an abstract sense.I found the way the movie was edited made it difficult to distinguish one sequence from another -- I could not always tell whether a new sequence was begun, or the cut was a continuation of the current overall scene.Near the end, as the ronin are gathering for their final assault of Kino's palace, we cut to a brief scene, in which one woman, hidden in a hooded cloak, attacks another woman with a blade while she is sleeping. The sleeping woman awakes and subdues her attacker, pulling back her hood so we can see her face. My partner and I could not figure out which women in the story these were, nor how this fit into the larger plot. Could one of you who has seen this movie multiple times clue me in on what happened here?