REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW DELHI -- Keanu Reeves has revealed that he felt like an outcast while filming '47 Ronin' because of the language barrier faced by him with the all-Japanese cast.
The Time of India reported, the film is based on a classic Japanese tale about 47 samurai in 18th-century Japan who avenge the murder of their master, 47 Ronin, has a cast Japanese actors- except for Reeves.
While talking about working with the cast, Keanu admitted that even though everyone was really nice to him and they got along great, he still couldn't hang out and speak Japanese, so in a way he was always Kai, the outcast character, Universal Pictures India reported.
According Hollywood.com, 47 Ronin is almost as tragic as the actual history that the movie is culling from. It follows the classic story of the titular team of warriors, a group of disgraced samurai who band together to seek revenge against a merciless warlord that betrayed and killed their master. But this isn't your grandfather's version of the story.
47 Ronin is an international affair, and it's covered with a veneer of Japanese mysticism and a thick coating of Hollywood lacquer, but east meets west rather uncomfortably, and it's mostly due to Keanu Reeves. Reeves' character is clearly crowbarred into the story that has no room for him, and it's plainly obvious where the seams of the story were stretched in order to patch him into the narrative. Reeves plays Kai, a half Japanese, half English orphan who is adopted by the samurai clan.
His character serves no real purpose beyond being white, slicing things until they die, and playing the male lead of the most superfluous love story of the year. Rinsch simply can't make the inclusion of the character feel organic in any way, and "Kai" very much feels like a calculated studio move.
It's a shame that the film spends so much time on Reeves when the real star is clearly Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays off the stoic samurai most believably among the rest of the cast.
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