Many thanks to @MyFirstShoot for tweeting their link!
My First Shoot sat down with Carl Rinsch to talk about his career and filmmaking. It is a length piece and mostly deals with Rinch’s input on filmmaking. He was asked one dirct question about why he made 47 Ronin:
Given the futuristic quality of your work, what drew you to a period piece like 47 Ronin?
It’s no so much a period piece and a historically accurate telling of what happened in 1702, but rather something that captures the spirit and ideology behind these men’s courage. I thought it could be interesting for me to do a historical period piece about Japan, but I don’t know if that’s entirely appropriate for me to do. However, if I were asked to do a chushingura story, where it’s a westerner’s point of view of the folkloric story, then that becomes interesting, and how can I make that fresh and new and different and seen through the eyes of a westerner. That’s why I got involved, the process of telling the chushingura story allowed for certain liberties that I as a western filmmaker could make. I could infuse it with fantasy and infuse it with a world that’s different from just a traditional historical context.
The entire interview is here.