Keanu Reeves to star in Hollywood version of “47 Ronin”

Yes, it makes a difference because part of what defines a culture is the stories it tells and retells – the retelling becomes a part of the culture. The retelling becomes a further contribution to that culture: it is part of the culture to retell the tale.

But you could argue that with an old story in a new culture, it is hijacking a culture to mine it without contributing to it by the retelling. In essence, at any rate – with this global culture that is developing among the richer nations, there will certainly be some feedback, some enhancement, of the host culture.

You know, I was going to add something about Kurosawa and Ran and King Lear, but then realised that King Lear was Shakespeare. In other words, it is the work of a single author, and thus its retelling is not a part of the cultural heritage. Only the restaging of the play. That’s the difference.

I never watched the whole movie. I only watched the hardcore fighting scenes because the teenage guy in me could not resist.

“Accuracy” didn’t especially bother me. And as all things go (getting the major names, places and sequence of events right, even the famous lines like “Then we shall fight in the shade”) 300 was actually reasonably “accurate”. In some ways I would say it was probably more accurate than a “documentary-style” film might have ended up as the producers of such a “serious” film might have been more eager to cover up some of the (by modern standards) darker elements of Spartan and Greek culture, whereas 300 didn’t sanitize itself – starting out being over the top and politically incorrect has advantages sometimes, I guess.

But the story really didn’t need cartoonish monsters, giant attack rhinos and actors that YELLED EVERY SINGLE LINE TO SHOW HOW SINCERE THEY WERE!!!!!!!!!!

That last one got real old, real quick.

Can George Takei actually speak Japanese? Okay, Wiki, that font of all knowledge, says yes.