“Asano!” he spat, and then died as Oishi, in cold rage, swung his sword with two hands in a great swinging arc which snipped Kira’s head from his shoulders (page 241-242). This excerpt is from one of the many great scenes in “47 Ronin” a novel written by John Allyn. The story tells of how 47 samurai become ronin, or masterless, after an unjust seppuku is forced upon their leader. In the novel, these samurai devise a plan in order to seek revenge for the death of their master and bring honor upon
only snatched away Oishi when he finished performing seppuku, but it also took Oishi’s childhood sweetheart’s love with it. Another case, in which sacrifice involved someone or some people dying was when the 47 Ronins died trying to save Ako and Lady Asano from Lord Kira’s evil hands. Not only were people heavily injured in the first ambush, but after the second ambush almost all of them were killed due to not following the orders of the Shogun. One case in which the destruction of the people affected
story is still spoken of today in modern Japan. Described by historians as a ‘National Legend’ (47 Ronin, 2011), the revenge of the 47 Ronin took place in Japan and it was considered the ultimate expression of the Samurai code of honour. Lord Asano Naganori, the Daimyo of the Ako domain was forced to commit ritual suicide for attacking Kira Yoshinaka in the Edo castle. Calling it a ritual suicide was not considered irregular, which raises a lot of question in both Australia’s and Japans new modern
inferior to the dominant culture. To emphasize this ideology, the movie made the main character a Westerner and ended with the same old plot, a white man saves the day. Keanu Reeves starred as Kai, a half-breed who was adopted by the benevolent Lord Asano Naganori and in love with Asano’s daughter, Mika, while others samurai sneered and looked down at him. There are two contradict reasons that can be explain why the main cast turned out to be a European which completely vanished the sense of Japanese. First