Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

Until this year and watching "47 Ronin," I considered Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956) one of the trinity of the greatest Japanese cinema masters (with Kurosawa and Ozu). My reverence for Mizoguchi's body of work was already challenged by the grim "Story of Oharu," but was really shaken by "47 Ronin," an adaptation of a standard kabuki tragedy, "Genroku chushingura," written by Seika Mayama. It is the story of Lord Asano (Yoshizaburo Arashi) in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate (which ended a prolonged civil war with a unified Japan closed to the outside) who ineptly tries to slay a corrupt official, Kira (Mantoyo Mimasu), who had tried to elicit a bribe and had been very condescending to the proud and honest lord.

The assassination attempt is almost the only action in the 4 hours (that seem like at least 16) and is completely bungled. For whatever the Japanese version of lese majeste is, Lord Asano is ordered to commit harikari, which he does (offscreen). The Asano clan is abolished, leaving the lord's samurai (warriors) masterless (ronin).

Many of them want to finish the job of assassinating Kira, but their head, Chamberlain Oishi (Chojuro Kawasaki), petitions the shogun to reverse the decision and restore the Asano clan. It is obvious to the viewer that this is a subterfuge while Oishi plans vengeance, but the samurai discuss their puzzlement at his action for hours (with lots of bowing and scraping), as does the widow (Mitsuko Miura) and her main retainer.

Any Japanese viewer knows that eventually the chamberlain leads a raid that slays Kira and that they all commit harikari, the penalty for their crime of honor, with the chamberlain going to last to make sure all the disembowelments follow the rigorous decorum of samurai honor. One might expect a dramatic attack on Kira, but instead it is described to Lady Asano. There are some lengthy confabulations and long takes in some Kurosawa and Ichikawa movies, but they panned within the takes, whereas those in "47 Ronin" are held (and held and held some more). Add "static" to "verbose" (loggorrheaic!) and the result is by far the dullest samurai movie I have ever seen.

The wartime movie was sponsored by the Japanese government to glorify self-annihilating samurai values of old. The movie was not commercially successful, even if the values of fighting on however hopeless the situation were rampant. Japanese audiences were accustomed to the stylization of kabuki and no plays, but seemingly also wanted some action in a very long telling almost completely void of showing famously dramatic action.

There scenes are highly composed with actors carefully distributed through the frames. There is a brief interlude of passion during which a lowly Asano retainer and his son plead to avenge their master, Miura and Kawasaki exude a powerful restraint, but restraint is something of which this movie has way far too much!

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I've concluded Mizoguchi's masterpieces were made during the 1950s and will get to at least one of them soon, but in my pantheon of Japanese directors, Kobayashi has risen to third place and Ichikawa is a serious contender for fourth.


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Recommended: No