Raiden (Clive Owen) must find a way to avenge the death of Bartok (Morgan Freeman) his master who was sentenced to death for challenging the Emperor's (Peyman Moaadi) Minister, Gezze Mott (Aksel Hennie). The reasoning is that a challenge to the Minister is also a challenge to the Emperor and must be dealt with by death. Bartok did have the opportunity to kill Gezze Mott and regretted not doing so. The Emperor rules that Raiden must carry out Bartok's death sentence. Well, this wasn't in the cards. (it was in the script, however)
It was never clear to me what country is involved in this. Who has Emperors? Japan, China, France? Hmmm
I suppose it really doesn't matter as this is not a true story. It does, however, have elements of another movie: 47 Ronin (a good movie BTW).
This has inklings of being an epic, the cinematography was outstanding; the acting: excellent; the music signaled it being so; the fights: bloody, brutal and intense; the scene setups were masterful. You almost believed this was a true story. Kudos. (you're too easy)
The key to this movie is in the words above " Raiden must find a way to avenge the death of Bartok." Keep that in mind and you almost know how this will play out.
I was impressed with the actor who played the Emperor: Peyman Moaadi, who gave a very strong performance even though his screen time wasn't all that much.
Some of the fighting near the end, while good, was always in the dark, blurry, too fast and hard to follow who were the good guys vs the bad guys. (the bad guys wore black helmets)
All in all a well told story with Morgan Freeman and Clive Owen carrying the load in good fashion. (7/10)
Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: No.
