Comments on: Keanu Reeves and the 47 Ronin

By: Sonny

Sonny — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 23:13:00 +0000

An excellent movie in my opinion. I felt inspired to look up the story of the 47 Ronin afterwards which I’m sure many people who hadn’t heard the story have now done. Sure, romantisising and embellishing the story of the lives of already great and brave warriors may seem offensive, but haven’t the Japanese been doing that since those men committed suicide?

This movie brings the fantastic and inspiring actions of the 47 Ronin to the westerners who haven’t heard of it and reminds those who have of this story. More than a story, this movie helps to preserve the memory of those 47 brave men which means that even all these years later mankind can continue to remember the lessons which these heroic acts of honour at the expense of the lives of others have taught us.

By: Christopher Stilson

Christopher Stilson — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 14:00:00 +0000

Wouldn’t that make it a fairly accurate representation of what many contemporary Japanese actually believed (and, indeed, of the attitudes that the military machine of Imperial Japan used to justify themselves in the following years)?

By: JapanFan

JapanFan — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 08:32:00 +0000

An Asian actor wouldn’t look half, though. In a Japanese setting, being “half” has HUGE plot implications and could be a VERY important plot point. And yes, I get that it doesn’t fit your American racial paradigm, but being white in Japan WILL make you an outcast.

I haven’t seen the movie, but the whole 47 Ronin story is about social outcasts doing socially unacceptable things and then committing suicide to atone for it. Including a racial outcast, i.e. white person, who would just also happen to act as a “POV” character for the target audience is actually a pretty great idea.

If you want to enjoy the movie through an Asian POV character, um, there are literally 47 for you to choose from. HanaHanaHanayuki and Rinko Kikuchi are right there, right there any time for you to celebrate.

My question is: WHY do you insist on tearing down Keanu Reeves when you COULD instead be LIFTING UP the achievements of Kikuchi and Hanayuki? I get that you want to fight racism, but Jesus, you could try to fight racism by being POSITIVE and CELEBRATING Asians rather than trying to tear down a white guy who you DON’T EVEN KNOW if he identifies as white or not!

I mean, seriously. I have been RAVING to my students here in Japan for WEEKS about Kikuchi – she is a HUGE Japanese success story – yet all you can do is whine about Keanu.

By: Japanfan

Japanfan — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 08:27:00 +0000

And it’s weird how real people who wanted to advance real careers weren’t allowed to play the Japanese characters – there are tons of Korean-American actors who would have done a much better job playing a samurai than the guys in this movie – can Hanahana Hanayuki even speak English? But, no, this movie would have bombed in Japan if Hollywood dared to sully its Japanese racial purity with a Korean-American.

This movie isn’t just problematic for its white character – it’s problematic for pandering to Japanese racist ideas, too.

By: Japanfan

Japanfan — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 08:25:00 +0000

There are very, very few good Japanese actors working outside of Japan that can speak or act in English, though. You really don’t know much about Japanese cinema these days, because it is utter garbage. The fact that Hollywood managed to find enough decent Japanese actors in the first place is a HUGE step forward for the American industry, because frankly, there just aren’t that many.

The REAL racism issue here is: why do casting directors go SO FAR out of their way to find real Japanese actors for a Japanese movie – when they would NEVER do the same for a Chinese or Korean one? Why is THIS movie special in that it needs an all Japanese cast (made up mostly of people who don’t speak English at all, let alone fluently enough to act).

In other words, in ANY other situation, Hollywood would have gladly filled in the roles with any Asian they could find.

Why not this one? Simple: if they had cast Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans or Chinese Americans – or, God forbid, Filipinos, VietNamese, Cambodians, &c. – in this movie, then THE JAPANESE would have flat-out refused to watch it.

The fact is that this movie is pandering to JAPANESE racists who would refuse to watch this movie if even a single character were played by a Korean. Weird how you don’t want to talk about the massive issues of Japanese racism surrounding this movie, focusing instead on the one, single part-white guy.

By: JapanFan

JapanFan — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 08:20:00 +0000

He isn’t white, though. He is what he says he is. He is what he identifies as. No one has asked him all these years, “Are you white?” They just assumed. And, you know what? Maybe this whole time, Keeanu was desperate for a chance to say, “No, guys, I’m not really white.”

And neither is the character in question white – you may or may not know this (and you probably don’t know, because Tofugu seriously draws a clueless crowd to its comments), but “half-Japanese” is not “white” in Japanese culture. It isn’t Japanese, either. It’s an entire, separate racial category, one that faces INTENSE and constant racial prejudice.

Keeanu is actually portraying a seriously underrepresented racial minority, and the movie deserves some credit for choosing to have an all-Japanese cast with one part-Asian playing a racial minority character.

I know, I know, “Half white isn’t a racial minority!” Not in America it isn’t, I guess (though “half” in America is still a pretty difficult identity to have), but it is in Japan. News flash: the racial and racist issues of America ARE NOT UNIVERSAL IN ALL COUNTRIES. This movie portrays a really under-represented aspect of CONTEMPORARY Japanese racism, and it really deserves some credit for having the guts to do that.

Inserting a white character for no reason – yeah, that would have been cheap and racist. Inserting a “half” character played by a “part” Asian? Now that…that’s something.

YOU might not think it’s something, but that’s because you are too blinded by your own ethnocentrism to understand that maybe – just MAYBE other cultures are slightly different from yours and face different issues. Japanese racism is VERY different from American racism. And this movie, in Japanese terms, in INSANELY progressive. Because, you may not want to admit this, and few Japanese people will, but Japan is decades upon decades behind the rest of the developed world in addressing race and racism. Yes, decades behind America. And, yes, if that sounds impossible – because, yes, America is pretty dang racist – that should give you an idea of how unspeakably racist Japan actually is.

I mean, would you like to hear about the real estate agent who refused to rent to me because I’m not Japanese? Cuz we can talk about that. Or the businesses in my own town that refuse to serve me because I’m not Japanese.