Many thanks to @cdreimer for tweeting his link!
C.D. Reimer reviewed 47 Ronin for Kicking The Bit Bucket. This was an interesting review. The author casts his comments on the film in the vein of how Hollywood represents Japanese samurai movies. He notes that 47 Ronin differs from other recent Japanese movies with samurai swords in that this one was relatively bloodless. In closing he said:
Despite the sword-and-socery fantasy elements, this is probably one of the finest Japanese movies to come out of Hollywood in a long time.
You can read the review here.