BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN (2022) ** ½

I wasn’t a fan of 47 Ronin.  I found the mix of samurai action and fantasy elements to be clunky at best.  It was definitely one of Keanu Reeves’ weakest action efforts.  

Now, nine years later, comes the DTV sequel, Blade of the 47 Ronin.  If it didn’t have the words “47 Ronin” in the title, I probably would’ve never known it was a sequel.  The fantasy elements are a lot more subdued, it’s set in modern-day Budapest (!?!), and there are no dragons.  Bummer.  

Yurei (Dan Southworth) is an evil magician who is trying two reunite two magic swords in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy.  Naturally, one of the swords is in the possession of a street smart, wiseass American thief (Anna Akana).  The samurai brotherhood sends Kung Fu Master Shinshiro (Mark Dacascos) to protect her from Yurei’s army of Ninjas and prevent him from obtaining the blade.  

Blade of the 47 Ronin is better than the original, mostly because it’s a down and dirty Samurai vs. Ninja flick, and I’m a sucker for those.  It’s not a patch on the grandaddy of the genre, 1995’s The Hunted, but there is a good Samurai vs. Ninja battle on a subway car that echoes the train battle in that film.  The rest of the action is solid throughout, and the choreography and camerawork are better than you would expect from this sort of thing.  

The performances are pretty good too.  It’s nice to see Dacascos maturing into the “wise old master” phase of his career.  Akana makes for a likeable leading lady, and it was fun to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Mike Moh as a young upstart ronin trying desperately to win the approval of his master.  

While this is a sequel to 47 Ronin, the main inspiration seems to come from another Keanu Reeves movie, John Wick.  The fight scenes are often bathed in neon purple and blue lights, the assorted samurai clans have distinct styles, and there’s a little bit of oddball worldbuilding (like, why are there samurai clans warring in modern day Budapest?).  One character even calls Dacascos a “John Wick fanboy”, which is funny because he had a supporting role in John Wick 3.

Ultimately, this is probably too long, with too many unnecessary characters and subplots to be truly effective.  Plus, all the plot twists seem to be there just for the sake of having plot twists.  It’s a DTV Samurai vs. Ninja movie.  You don’t have to try to pull the rug out from under us at the end of each act.  Still, as far as Universal’s DTV productions from their 1440 company go, you can certainly do a lot worse.