The 47 Ronin: Last Part (1942)

The 47 Ronin Last Part took up the talking and sitting from the first film, for two more hours of talking and sitting. Mizoguchi Kenji made a beautiful looking movie for 1942 and the acting by Kawarasaki Chojuro was as exceptional as the first part. Finally, after 3 hours it was time for the catharsis of revenge after the mountain of dialogue, right? Not really. Just more talking.

Oishi discovered that his request for the Asano family to be restored failed which caused him and the other retainers to dance with joy. They could now avenge their lord and restore everyone’s honor. Oishi promptly set out to find more people to talk to, not the other Ronin, they were the invisible Ronin. The day after his visit to Lady Asano she received a letter detailing the Asano Ronin’s attack on Kira’s castle.

Four hours of talking, 47 Ronin, and the most important action shown was the hotheaded lord at the beginning of the movie who caused the downfall of his family. I used the analogy of Star Wars in my review of the first part. To continue that analogy, this film would be like the Rebel Alliance General Dodonna (minor character) receiving an email that the Death Star had successfully been blown up. Anything exciting in these films happened off screen. Show, don’t tell, is a much better payoff for the audience. I want to see Luke flying his X-Wing with Darth Vader right behind and those 47 Ronin attacking the castle and lopping off Kira’s head.

After Kira’s defeat there was almost an hour left. While confined, the Ronin had time for a talent show, flower arranging, and lovers saying good-bye, lovers we never met. At the beginning of the movie, we were treated to a Noh performance. But all was well because we were told over and over and over and over how taking vengeance on Lord Kira was the honorable thing to do and restored the honor of the family and the Ronin and showed how honorable Ronin behave. Even Lord Asano’s wife said her husband pulling a sword in the Shogun’s palace was a boneheaded move but he must be avenged or he would forever be a laughingstock. Asano’s impulsive action affected thousands of lives and caused at least 50 deaths, not counting the Kira contingent, all because someone called him boorish. If this movie was supposed to inspire the audience, I wonder how well it succeeded.

The one area where the movie didn’t let me down was Mizoguchi’s filming style. Every frame was exquisite. The sets and exterior shots were refined and well lit. The only drawback was often the characters were filmed so far away it was difficult to make out their facial expressions. The technique was quite distancing emotionally from what should have been an emotional movie. Then there were those invisible Ronin. Seventeen men stood in for the 47 and we learned almost nothing about any of them, no connection, no empathy for their plight. When they did talk it was all about being ready to die. Or being happy they were about to die. Or that everyone died with honor. Even for a propaganda film, the call for self-sacrifice was laid on thick. The kids were told in the first film, “Samurai children must behave as if nothing is wrong during a crisis.” I suppose when you’re about to awaken a sleeping giant you want everyone onboard with the party line.

For a movie with the title The 47 Ronin, this felt more like homework than entertainment. Four hours of dialogue with much of it repetitive was more than I could take. I want to see outtakes of the exciting elements that happened off screen-forbidden love and castle assaults. Since Mizoguchi refused to show us those things, he could have easily condensed this movie to two hours. It’s not like he was devoting those four hours to character development beyond their loyalty, stoicism, and desire for revenge and death. In the first film, it appeared he might have been leaning toward the characters resisting the rules of a corrupt Shogunate and rebelling (honorably of course), instead their actions were seen as heroic as they adhered to the bushido code and surrendered to the authority of the Shogun. An interesting film time capsule from the war era but it would help to be a fan of Mizoguchi or chatty samurai films with zero action.

18 March 2024

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