Seriously. Having the cast deliver lines in clumsy English not only broke the immersion of the film being set in Japan but it was just painful to listen to.
Change that and get rid of the "half-breed" hero and you have a semi-decent film (aside from some clumsy direction).
Agreed. Or you could watch this one instead.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055850/ - the great Chushingura.
I came here to say the exact same thing! I hate subtitled movies normally but in genres such as this where there isn't a lot of chit chat during action scenes I would have happily read subtitles.
I also liked the "half-breed" part. My face was priceless when I realised that Keanu wasn't the main lead but Hiroyuki was - that's the way it came across to me anyway. Bear in mind I am a Keanu fan who watched the movie (finally) because he is in it. I am not usually a fan of movies like this and would never have sat down to watch it if he hadn't been in the movie, which I happen to have really enjoyed. Enjoyed so much I would have watched it had they been speaking Japanese.
Movies like this, that get such mixed reviews, do more good for this genre than people realise. I learned that I would happily sit through a subtitled movie in this genre (fantasy samurai drama?) without a well known mainstream lead. I didn't know that about myself before.
[deleted]
yeah lets have the sub titles and have to really look at the sub titles to understand them
Look like Tarzan talk like Jane! HAHA